Why Training Courses Should Not be Cut in Recessionary Times

Is training the first real budget to be cut in times of recession? I wish I knew the answer to that question. It is difficult to know as although the expenditure of companies has to be reduced the need to continue to do business and up skill your workforce remains and training and training courses are a vital ingredient in achieving this.

Training courses are still being run all over the globe and someone is paying for them, in a recent interview I was asked how the recession has affected the number of training courses we run. The truth is it hasn’t made any difference to the number of courses we run, we are still running the same amount of training courses as we always did.

The reason I believe we are still achieving the same volume of training is due to price, it appears that nearly all if not all training course providers have reduced their fees for courses, meaning that the value for money for individuals and employers is excellent at the moment for training staff.

This means to the training company and the trainer that they are working just as hard as ever before but for less reward. This is not only common to training, I have noticed in a number of cities that hotel rates have also been reduced significantly to try and capture the market and remain in business.

Although this is great for the consumer it can be a dangerous game for businesses as no one really wants to get involved in a race to the bottom

I would be a telling lie if I said all was rosy in the training business, it is not. The major difference we have seen is that it appears to be getting harder and harder to actually fill the training courses, not because companies are not sending staff for training, but I believe that it is because there are less and less companies operating, particularly in the small and medium enterprise sector.

I was working in a city recently and happened to be walking down the street at lunch time to grab a sandwich and I noticed the amount of smaller offices which were vacant with large signs on them saying Office to Let. Four years ago all those offices had maybe 2-20 people working in them, now they are lying vacant in the middle of the financial district of a major city.

So if we go back to the original question, which was ‘in a recession is training the first thing to get slashed from a company budget?’ I believe in the short term it may well be, but as companies realise that staff training is still necessary and the fees associated with such training have been reduced in many cases substantially, sooner or later training courses and staff training come back in to the budget.

If you want to learn more about how to achieve your greatest desires whether its through business or home then check out our sitewww.premiertraining.ie for more tips and tricks.

Frank O'Toole, Premier Training Courses