How to Train Your Staff With A Decreasing Budget

In our last blog, How to Use the 70/20/10 Model to Develop Careers, we discussed the “what”, “when” and “how” of using the 70/20/10 Adult Learning Model for employee development. Now let’s discuss the “why”.

Managers face daily decisions to ensure their team gets what’s needed for success. But with budgets getting smaller, it’s hard to stretch resources. After reading this blog, you will learn several tips on how to stretch your training budget, spend wisely, plan strategically and still meet your employee development goals.

The “Why” to Employee Development

What is the return on investment (ROI) for a manager who wants to allocate time and financial resources for her employees? Simply put: a better prepared employee is a more productive employee. According to the Association of Talent Development (ATD), companies that invest in training employees see a 218% higher income per employee than companies that don’t. The 70/20/10 model for employee development is one effective tool to leverage the current talents of your staff and build stronger teams, which increases the organizational bottom line.

We know that the manager cannot motivate an employee to improve; that has come from within the employee. However, managers can create a learning environment for them to grow. How? The first step is to take an inventory of the current staff, using a consistent assessment tool such as a 360-degree assessment, with an objective lens to collect skills data. This full assessment will provide two sets of data in one assessment: strengths and areas to grow. By selecting the right 360 tool, you can complete two tasks at once for the same price, creating cost savings for your budget. This 360 view lets managers begin to leverage the strengths in their staff that can be shared with other employees; it also shows the delta between the strengths and weaknesses, so you can create the best strategy to decrease the weaknesses of the entire team.

Employee Development on a Limited Budget

Once the assessment is complete, how can you train your staff with a small budget? The answer is: leverage in-house expertise and think “out of the box” to create the most efficient use of your budget dollars.

When using the 70/20/10 model properly, you can save thousands of dollars by creating “out of the box” ways to improve employee development. There is a 90% solution sitting in your office; with 70% of the model focused on using internal subject matter experts (SMEs), find ways to leverage employee expertise to grow the strengths of your workforce. Then with 20% of the model focused on social networks, you can give employees a chance to learn through association with others. 

As an example, create shadow assignments, where a developing employee spends time watching and working with a SME to pick up tips, techniques, and process flows for the job. Another example is creating Tiger teams, a small group of employees strategically assembled to work on a task that is part of a whole task, which allows the employees to learn the other parts of the process collectively. In addition, you could start an office learning culture over a lunch hour with a monthly brown bag learning session, allowing employees to share and learn from each other.

Here are three tips to help you create a team learning environment on a limited budget, using “out of the box” thinking:

1) Set time aside: Create time in your schedule to meet with your staff and discuss their strengths and areas of growth. Start with 30 minutes and extend to 60 minutes once you have more to discuss with employees. You can start with the 360 assessment and build a plan from there.

2) Reoccurring feedback: By using tip #1, create an atmosphere where you provide consistent and constant feedback to employees, which will allow them to be more open and seek opportunities to continue their professional growth.

3) Leverage SMEs: Leveraging internal SMEs will help you save money. Saving money creates a win-win situation for you and your staff, freeing up resources for those required training or last-minute requirements.

When you take time and make strategic decisions who needs training and what are the aggregate requirements, you can save money and potentially get more training completed with less resources.

As you can see, there are a variety of ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of training employee development. Want to learn more tips? CHCI has a team of professionals who develop cutting edge training development programs that attract the best and brightest to your company. Contact us now!