What's Happening to Training?

[Anonymous]

Financial doctrine states that when the economy weakens,
travel and entertainment budgets are the first to be cut. This is true for
households as well as businesses. In addition to travel and entertainment, many
businesses are forgoing necessary training of employees in the hopes of saving
money. With the exception of the months following 9/11, training has never
before fallen so far, or so fast as it has since the recent economic turmoil
began in mid-September 2008.

As corporations cut budgets, business travelers and travel
managers are looking for ways to save every available penny by flying less and
cheaper. As said another way by a corporate travel manager,“Business travelers
are not fools, they know that their bonuses, maybe even their jobs, depend on us
cutting costs and riding out this bad economy.

More here....

size=2>http://teknigroup.com/training/training%202009.html

--
Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified
Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified
Expert.

[ACADuser]

Of all the cuts so far, travel and training was the first to go. I asked just a few weeks ago about some training and was told very nicely to do the tutorials. That means no travel/training dollars - nothing, nada, zip !

[prada08]

Here in Atlanta, the market is devastated as well. I am actually training outside our industry in soft skills or tech topics.
Good Luck everyone. We will survive. 🙂

[jmcintyre]

When times are quiet is the best time to retrain/upgrade etc. Certainly as competition increases we all need an edge to keep our companies afloat and ourselves employed.

[djohnson1976]

I agree that when times are quite is the best time to train (or sharpen the saw)...the problem is that short-sighted managers and owners pull back

[Anonymous]

Basically its the same all over, when money is tight things disappear, such as training.

And AutoDesk did not help many of us when it came to the licensing issue and High costs
for Vault series aka Product Stream either.

So if Autodesk offers any training in the way of Customer Care maybe certain people at AutoDesk should take it.



This is my Opinion not my employer

Gary Harrison

[GrantsPirate]

I have been working for almost 35 years and it has always been true, when times get tough training is the first thing to go. And rightly so, it is simple economics, training costs money and with no money coming in it is hard to pay for training. Having said that, I think the smart company would put money aside for the slow times and train when there are no deadlines approaching. This gives that company a leg up when things turn around. But I have yet to see anyone actually do that.

I work for a manufacturing company and they had a full time training coordinator years ago and we had required classes, many of which were taught here on site. Money got tight years ago and the trainer went away but the required classes are still listed. But when you ask to go to training and point out that it still required you are still not able to attend. Always comes down to the short term thinking when talking about money and management.

[Anonymous]

Actually as a company, I have deferred training payment plans
available for companies. It's a no risk offer for companies and directly
benefits them now, during tough times. 

I understand the demands on cash flow during an extreme
recession. I've been there many times myself. There are basically two ways to
deal with a recession:

Pull the roof over my head technique - batting down the
hatches and attempting to ride out the storm.

Start planning intelligently, just how you will emerge from
the recession.

Using the first technique, you will end the recession at
status quo, starting over, doing things in exactly the same way that you were
experiencing prior to the recession. Only this time, you will be more than
likely quite a bit poorer, and possibly with a worsened ability to compete in
the new economy. Your competition however, may just emerge in a completely
different state.

Intelligent planning requires that you investigate all cost
reducing aspects of your business, while at the same time, looking at ways to
improve efficiency and productivity. If your engineering department has
undertrained engineers and designers, you will never achieve a high level of
productivity, both in design and in the manufacturing areas of your
company.

Many companies believe that software is something that people
should just naturally learn on their own. There is nothing further from the
truth, especially when it comes to the complex CAD software that modern
companies use. Every dollar spent to properly train your employees will be
returned to you, multiplied, in as little as two or three months. That is an ROI
that cannot be ignored by companies that wish to survive. During bad economic
times when the workload is slow, it is very difficult to justify spending money
to properly train your employees. After all, no one can predict the future, or
just when the recession will end.

Getting training during the recession does not mean spending a
lot of money. I do training for a living, and I have reduced my training prices
by 40% during this recession, just to keep my head above water. I've even gone
so far as to introduce payment plans that reduce the company's cash flow to a
minimum.

There is absolutely no excuse for any company to not consider
getting their employees trained and ready for when the recession ends. Please
keep in mind that I'm not making this statement for my economic benefit, but to
encourage companies everywhere on the planet to reevaluate how they prepare
their employees for success. As a company you should check out the training that
is available to you via the web, or locally. Many resellers are doing their part
to assist their customers in getting users trained NOW.

It's really a no-brainer decision. If you do not train your
people now, then where are you going to find the time to get them trained once
the economy improves and you have orders flooding and faster than you can handle
them?

--
Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified
Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified
Expert.
Instructor/Author/Sr. App Engr. Tel. (260) 399-6615
AIP 2008 SP3,
AIP 2009-SP1 PcCillin AV
AMD 64 x2 3.0 Ghz, 8GB RAM GeForce 9800GT 512MB

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