Cut the Training Budget? Do You Feel Lucky?

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Without fail, any employer, health care provider, or safety expert will tell you proper — and regular — training is the best, most cost-effective way to prevent injuries and death in the workplace.

But what do most businesses cut when tightening their belts? The training budget, of course (see “Recommended Reading”, below). Increasing — and improving — training is commonly cited as the best way to rein in safety related expenses like:

• Medical care for the injured;
• Down time;
• Hiring and training temporary workers;
• The monetary and psychosocial costs to the family of the injured worker;
• Potential lawsuits;

and probably a few others.  My point is that an ounce of prevention, adjusted for inflation, must be worth a metric ton or more of cure. The organization that slashes its training budget to save a few pennies in the short term will likely come to regret that action in the long run.

They might cut the training budget and still get incredibly lucky. ”But…you’ve got to ask yourself a question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you…?!“¹

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Recommended Reading

• Beller, Justin, “Cutting Training in a Down Economy Is Not a Smart Move”, PinPoint Performance Solutions (10 Feb 2009), http://www.pinpointperformance.net/?q=blogs/justin_beller/cutting_training_down_economy_not_smart_move.
• Mitchell, Tia, “Jacksonville Mayor Cuts Library’s Travel and Training Budgets”, Florida Times-Union (26 Aug 2010), http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-08-26/story/peyton-eliminates-library%E2%80%99s-travel-and-training-budgets.
• O’Leonard, Karen, “Another Year of Training Budget Cuts”, Bersin & Assoc. (12 Jan 2010), http://www.bersin.com/blog/post/2010/01/Another-Year-of-Budget-Cuts.aspx.
• Somers, Johanna, “Difficult Budget Forces Cuts in City Travel and Training”, Columbia Missourian (19 Sept 2010), http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/09/19/city-travel-and-training-budget-cuts/.
• Thomas, Daniel, “Training Budgets Cut By More Than Half Of Employers, Says CIPD”, Personnel Today (13 April 2010), http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2010/04/13/55220/training-budgets-cut-by-more-than-half-of-employers-says.html.
• Weil, Michael, “Downsizing Training Budgets?”, Contracting Business-dot-com (1 March 2009), http://contractingbusiness.com/columnists/weil/downsizing_training_budgets/.

Footnotes

1 “Dirty Harry” (1971).