The Sanford Berenberg Experience: Message of the Day - Did Budget Cuts Kill Your Training Plans? Here is another solution

Good Morning,

If your company was/is impacted by the rough economy have been experiences for this last year (which I am reading has started to improve), then your training budgets have probably been one of the casualties of the recession.

How can a company provide training to its staff when there are little to no training dollars in the budget? Flying out to training sessions in other cities cost travel, hotel and training costs. Local training sessions are less expensive, but they do not always have the subject matter you need for your team. Doing nothing, well that will just stifle the grow of your team, and you need them to do more with less.

Is there another way to having training for our teams without the high costs associated with them?

Yes, there are several. The first is to join professional networking groups and share the cost of training by bringing in a professional speaker.

Another way is to simply read and share a book.

Books can cost anywhere from nothing (you already have the book) upwards of $100 or more. Most books are in the $12 - $35 range in most bookstores. Older books will generally be less. You can pick the topic of the training and find the right book or books to help give the core information for the training. I am not suggesting that you simply hand your staff a book and ask them to read it (We all know how that goes).

What I am suggesting is to get multiple copies of the same book, on a subject you want your team to learn, and ask each of them to read and then discuss the book at a weekly meeting. You will still need to set ground rules and training goals, but you can have a good series of training sessions using books as a source.

For example, if your company is going through a lot of change and your teams are suffering or worse, fighting the change, then give them the assignment to read "Who Moved My Cheese" by Spencer Johnson (http://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-My-Cheese-Amazing/dp/0399144463) and discuss it over the course of three weeks. Use the discussion points and questions in the current meetings as a focus for the following meeting. The interaction between the team, based on the book, and facilitated by you will have some amazing effects as team members share ideas and learn from each other.

Then follow up with "Our Iceberg is Melting" by John P. Kotter and Holger Rathgeber (http://www.amazon.com/Our-Iceberg-Melting-Succeeding-Conditions/dp/031236198X). Where your team members discuss the nature of change and how to not only understand it, but support it and even plan it. You can even make crafting a plan using the lessons learned in the book as part of your training.

Using a book as a foundation for the training you get the same core information you would get in many training sessions, and you also get the team interaction, which is actually much more important.

The best part is that the training would be at the cost of several books and some meeting time. You can also set up your training multiple times a year with minimal hits to your budget.

While full interactive training with a professional presenter is invaluable, having to tighten the budget does not preclude having training of some sore for your companies.

And if the company cannot go for this much, then you can at least continue to read and learn and grow daily.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net