One of my senior people has asked to attend a seminar but I’ve slashed the training budget. Should I say yes or no?

Hands up if you cut your training budget this year? You are not alone. But is training really a luxury that can be temporarily discarded along with the Christmas party and Business Class travel?

Earlier this week a business owner let slip his irritation over one of his senior team asking to attend a seminar. “This is not the year for spending on training, it’s the year for tightening the belt,” he gasped.

The conversation reminded me of the five myths of training. Here they are:

1. Training is a nice-to-have

If you are taking the time to read this then my guess is you understand the importance of keeping up your own learning. But in the last 90 days what professional development has your team been doing?

If they are working in a growing business, a changing economic landscape or a time of great technological change (that must cover pretty much everyone) then your team needs to grow their skills so that they can spot and seize opportunities.

2. Training is technical

When most small and medium sized businesses think of training they think just about “technical” training, which means training on systems, professional updates, etc.

This is such a shame because businesses that widen the concept of training to include education on leadership, management, people, finance, economics, communication and so on, always out-perform their peers. Phenomenally.

3. Training is expensive

The trouble with training is that the word conjures up an image of expensive week long residential courses. But it rarely needs to be so. Here are some low cost ideas that work remarkably well:

• Give your team a list of interesting books to read. They don’t have to be directly relevant to their role or your business, the wider your team reads the more innovative and creative it will become.
• Keep a log of useful blogs and encourage your team to add to it too. Blogs by thought leaders such as Seth Godin will help your team to think differently.
• Put on lunchtime learning sessions. Invite external people to speak. Many local business people will be delighted to share their thoughts with your team for the price of a sandwich.
• If you want to keep lunchtime learning internal you could use the time to discuss books, watch a webinar or review an “expert” DVD. Webinars and DVDs work out to be a very low cost way of getting great information from the world’s experts.

The cheapest, most effective education of all is simply to share with your team the actions you are taking to keep learning. You will be surprised how many will adopt your habits.

4. Employees aren’t interested in training

If you think employees aren’t interested in training, try offering attendance at a personal development seminar as a reward. Just recently a client told me how he trialed this as a way of getting staff to submit more ideas into their innovation program. The deluge of ideas caused the system to crash!

5. We don’t have time for training

If you have made staff cuts to manage costs and your team is working extra hard then it’s understandably tricky to find the time to devote to training, but it’s not hard to justify. Serious businesses find a way.

There are, of course, a few bosses who are appalled at the concept of actually paying staff for hours spent training. But that’s not you.

Businesses that are prepared for opportunity are poised to do well as we come out of the GFC. Be one of them, keep your people smart.

Julia Bickerstaff’s expertise is in helping businesses grow profitably. She runs two businesses: Butterfly Coaching, a small advisory firm with a unique approach to assisting SMEs with profitable growth; and The Business Bakery, which helps kitchen table tycoons build their best businesses. Julia is the author of “How to Bake a Business” and was previously a partner at Deloitte. She is a chartered accountant and has a degree in economics from The London School of Economics (London University).

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