Subject: Compilation of training budget guidelines Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 15:34:02 -0600 From: Timothy Todd The following are the responses to my query of a few days ago regarding training budget guidelines. Much thanks to those who responded. Hope this information is of use to the members of the list. Tim Todd ****************************************************************** As much as you need to spend to reach the "strategic purposes" of training in the organization. If training isn't strategically linked no amount of money is justified. If it IS, then clearly one spends what one needs. It's like saying how much per year should one spend on one's house maintenance. The obvious answer is enough so it doesn't fall down (or lose value...etc). BTW, I'm sure you will receive some great answers using "CAN", completely arbitrary numbers. Robert Bacal, Inst.For Cooperative Communication, rbacal@escape.ca Visit our Resource Centre for articles on mgmt.,training,communication, and defusing hostility at http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal (204) 888-9290 ***************************************************************** Timothy......we take about 5% of our gross salary amount and divide by the number of employees. That is each employee's training budget. However, we do cost in the employee's salary when computing the cost of a training course. (If the course costs $400 per day and the employee earns $150 per day, then that employees 'cost' to their training entitlement is $550 per day). This is only a rough entitlement for each employee. If a course/conference/seminar comes up that management thinks is valuable, the employee will go, regardless of how much is left in their 'account'. ****************************************************************** Hi Tim, I doubt there is a rule of thumb for costs. There are a number of sources for determining costs. I suggest you look at the work of Michael Greer. He has a good deal to offer. I spent 18 years in industry and what I learned is that the expenditure of training dollars per employee can only be related to the plans of the organization. A baseline can be established if a company has mandated training and job specific training; however this is unique to the company under consideration. Feel free to give a call if I can be of any more help. Regards, Mike Angelini ======================================= 365 Roy H. Park Hall Department of Corporate Communications Park School of Communications Ithaca College Ithaca, NY 14850 Phone: (607) 274-1951 Fax: (607) 274-1664 e-mail: mangelini@ithaca.edu e-mail: mangelini@ibm.net http://www.ithaca.edu/ rhp/corpcomm/mangelini/index/ ****************************************************************** I have worked for a number of large companies and a couple of smaller ones since I "retired". The approach to training has been consistent: 5 to 15 days per employee depending on their role in the organization. less technical people got 5 to 10 days and the technicians and supervisors got 10 to 15. Of course those were the numbers that we used to establish the budget and not necessarily the number of days specific people used. In my experience the total number of training days was usually 10 to 15 percent less than the budgeted amount. George Williams Sr. Training Specialist ****************************************************************** > At 07:56 AM 2/18/98 -0500, you wrote: > >Dear Dr. Todd, > > > >Please check out chapter 10 of the ASTD Training and Development > >Handbook, fourth edition re training budgets. If you have difficulty > >finding that I'll be happy to send you a draft copy of the chapter. > I'll > >also be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the > >philosophy and mechanics of training budgets. > > > >Wes Stillwagon ****************************************************************** 1