Training floors and smarter blends help maintain training spend

18 Jun 2012

by: Margaret Snell

An analysis of the impact of the recession on training has found that contrary to expectations forecasters in Europe and in the US predict a small increase in training expenditure in the coming years.

Kineo found that Trainingindustry.com estimates that spend on training services in the US will rise by 2% in 2012. In the UK Keynote forecast that training expenditures will also increase modestly year on year rising from £19.5bn in 2011/12 to £21.75bn by 2015/16.

In looking for an answer to why training spend is increasing whilst everything else is contracting Kineo concluded that training is something companies cannot do without.

The company refers to a piece of research on this topic: “The Impact of the 2008/09 Recession on the Extent, Form and Patterns of Training at Work” by Alan Felstead, Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University and Francis Green and Nick Jewson of LLAKES Centre, Institute of Education, University of London. This research identified the concept of training floors and training smarter.

Training floors support a specific level of training that cannot be abandoned such as compliance, meeting operational need, countering skills shortages etc. Different industries will have different floors, but there is a threshold below which you cannot go and still be viable.

The research also found that recession encouraged employers to find ways of ‘training smarter’, including focussing their training on business needs, increasing in-house provision, increased use of on-site group training and enhancing the role of e-learning.

Although initial costs were a disincentive for some, the research found that training was enhanced by employing e-learning and when it was up and running it was perceived as a cheap and highly flexible mode of training.

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