| Training your way out of the recession |
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It was refreshing to read this article in the Sunday Times on 2 November: Training your way out of the recession. Training budgets are an easy target when it comes to cutting costs. But with what result? Based on research carried out with 1,189 organisations by Cranfield School of Management, the report ‘Nurturing Talent’ compares the cost of training existing employees to the cost of hiring new ones. 50% of the organisations surveyed said that training increased the likelihood of employees staying. Increased motivated was identified by one third of participants and more than 50% found that they reduced their costs by investing in the current workforce compared to the high cost of recruiting new ones. One organisation cited in the article – Mines Rescue of Mansfield – was at risk of going out of business with the decline of the mining industry. Having retrained its workforce and transformed itself into a health and safety consultancy, it now has 1,400 customers across the world and an £8m turnover. Now that’s a good case study. This valuable evidence should provide encouragement to organisations to take a different view and recognise the high value of investing in rather than cutting training. |
