What is Cost-Effective Training?
Cost effectiveness is not only about sticking to a budget when training. Rather, it is about how effective the money spent on training is for the business. For example, you might purchase a training course that undercuts all your other options and saves a lot on you budget. You may deem this to be cost effective. But, if the quality of training is not to standard, the training will not be effective for your business success. As a result, the cost effectiveness of your training is poor.
To calculate cost effectiveness, compare the cost of training to the outcome of the training. A training project that will consume most of your budget but has expected outcomes that equip the business to reach its goals, is cost effective. During this analysis, do not just look at the price of training as the only factor that deems its cost effectiveness. Consider the benefits the business will attain from delivering the training. It is important for your business to analyse the cost effectiveness of training to make an informed decision on the investment.
How do you currently organise cost effective training?
Before you continue reading, consider the following question.
How do you and your business currently organise cost effective training?
Whether you are creating training in house, hiring an external company to create training, or purchasing existing training packages, you need to ensure that it is cost effective for your business. Do you feel that you are organising cost effective training by simply keeping expenses down?
For example, you organise training based on large groups to make training cost cheaper or offer business wide training only once a quarter. You may keep your costs down by always purchasing cheap training packages that have decent reviews rather than the expensive competitors which you know offer better quality with better results. Rather than hiring full time employees that have salaries, you might outsource training creation to freelancers as and when needed. This may keep your costs down, but the training may not be strategically aligned with your business needs when hiring freelancers.
Only investing in the absolutely must have training courses will keep costs down however it will not meet all the business’ training needs. While these methods may keep costs down, it is not cost effective when looking at the cost of training verse results achieved. These short cuts can jeopardise the training quality.
Suggestions to organise cost effective training
The above examples are not bad ways to organise cost effective training. However, when they are purchased only because they are a cheaper opportunity you may forgo quality. If the quality of training decreases, so too do the results. For example, group training is a great idea to provide opportunities for collective learning. When students participate in groups, they have the opportunity to learn more than if they were learning alone. However, groups that are too big (because it is cheaper) can decrease these learning opportunities.
Likewise, investing in low-priced training does not always equal poor quality. However, if you are choosing the lower priced training knowing that it is lower quality only to save on budget, then this will affect the cost effectiveness. When you combine all the expenses that come with training, such as flights and accommodation, the cost of training can increase rapidly.
To maintain cost effectiveness, consider purchasing courses that are offered online. This is especially useful if the courses are self-paced. This will provide your staff with the flexibility and help you to avoid (or keep to a minimum) any cancellation fees. If online is not always an option, Training as a Service (TaaS) is a perfect alternative. TaaS is a service provided by training professionals to train your staff on a variety of topics with their already existing courses.
What can TaaS offer you to organise cost effective training
When you have a subscription to TaaS, your staff can attend courses overtime instead of attending a one-off course that you have purchased. This volume of learning over time will yield better results rather than a short hit of training in one or several days. You can then compare the outcomes verse the investment of a subscription to analyse the cost effectiveness.
Furthermore, the number of attendees you enroll each month does not affect the cost of the training. With 12 to 15 different courses scheduled per month, you can implement group training as a cost effective strategy without negatively affecting quality or outcomes.
TaaS offers onsite or Virtual Instructor-Led Online training. Regardless of the method of delivery, all training sessions will run as the sessions are not dependent only on your in house numbers. This means that your staff can plan their schedule around the training definitely taking place. You can organise flights and accommodation without the risk of the training being cancelled. However, if you need to cancel the training there are no fees. You can also easily substitute the staff member rather than cancelling entirely.
By providing these flexible solutions to you, alongside our professional trainers, we are supporting you to have the ability in organising cost effective training for your business.
The Wrap Up
When looking for cost effective training solutions, ensure that you are conducting your analysis of the cost of training versus the results of the training. Only focusing on decreasing expenses does not make training cost effective.
To learn more about a subscription to Training as a Service, and how you can organise cost effective training, click here.