Has the economy affected your training strategy?

I was listening to the recent “Top Tech Initiatives Podcast: Learning & Competency” posted on the AICPA Economic Resource Center. While this podcast focuses on learning and competencies from a technology perspective (you must take the  half hour to listen), it made me think about training and learning budgets in today’s uncertain economy.

Many companies are trying to trim budget dollars, and the learning budget seems an easy target. I’m sure our business, industry and government folks are taking a good, hard look at this line item since they often dedicate more resources to learning and training than public accounting does. In my three years at the AICPA, I’m amazed by the variance in amount of training organizations provide their teams.  Some may think it’s a big company, little company difference, but I don’t think that’s true. It really comes down to organizational culture. There are some organizations that find it necessary and beneficial to the organization and their people to invest in learning.

I realize every situation is different and some may opt to reduce training dollars rather than cut people, and I agree with that philosophy.  There are ways to cut the training dollars without sacrificing the learning. Make sure you talk to your people and let them know that the training methods will change during these challenging times and the organization will rethink the strategy once the economy stabilizes.

I will confess that I’m writing this blog post a little early as I have to leave for the AICPA Practitioners Symposium in Las Vegas May 4^th through 6^th. I feel good about this year’s conference and based on attendance, there are plenty of small firms who still feel strongly about training. There are some firms bringing three or more attendees. I know in years past, some firms would make Practitioners their firm retreat. It looks like that is happening again this year.

So what about you? How has the economy affected your training budget? What methods are you using to keep your team learning during the economic downturn? Post a comment.

– Mark Koziel

Comments

I work with banks on loan quality and an important aspect of those services is training lenders on tax return analysis. Even with the urgency that loan quality be maintained or improved in a tough environment, the banks have cut outside training dramatically. In some cases, they'll pay for training but only if there is not travel involved.

This is true whether the bank is challenged in their capital levels and cutting way back on lending, or if the bank is well capitalized but nervous. However, I am seeing a bit of loosening in this area.

My other hat is as convention co-chair for the National Speakers Association, my 'other' professional association. We are 8 weeks out from convention and ahead of our numbers for 2004, 2005, and 2007. We are hopeful we'll have our usual complement of attendees.

It is hard to predict.

what occupations that this person could get are probably slightly similar to a wildlife ecologist,

It hasn't really affected my training strategy.