Training Industry Quarterly - Winter 2009 - (Page 27) TARGETING TRAINING WITH LIMITED BUDGETS BY TRACY HOLLISTER FOCAL POINT A s training budgets tighten with the economy, learning leaders who want to improve their impact must make smarter training investments. They must understand which learning needs of employees and customers are most important and how to get the right people into the right courses. Recent studies show how much training budgets are consistently decreasing and provide insight into how to target the right training courses to the right people for maximum impact. Tightening Budgets It is not surprising that training budgets are trending in the same direction as the economy – generally down with few upsides. Surveyed in February and November 2008 on how their budgets were changing between 2007-08 and 2008-09, corporate training professionals reported two notable changes. First, as shown in Table 1 at right, those reporting significant budget decreases more than 10% grew – from 17% to 24%. This brings the percentage of respondents expecting any budget decrease in 2009 to nearly half. Second and more notably, the percentage of respondents expecting any budget increase went down by nearly half, from 31% to 17%. The November 2008 study, “Measuring Learning as Budgets Tighten,” gave further evidence of this downward trend. Over three times as many (38% versus 11%) said that their budgets decreased than increased during 2008. Market Research: Assessing True Training Needs What does this budget reality mean for learning and development departments? It means continuing to drive impact by Table 1 Budget Changes: '08-’09 & '07-’08 Decreased by more than 10% Decreased by less than 10% Remained the same Increased by less than 10% Increased by more than 10% 0 6% 16% 10% 20% 11% 15% 24% 17% 24% 24% 2008-09 Changes 2007-08 Changes 35% 28% 30% 40% Percentage of Respondents Source: Training Industry, Inc.& Expertus Training Industry Quarterly, Winter 2009 / A Training Industry, Inc. ezine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ 27 http://www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ
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