SMART APPROACHES
L&D budget holders carry the great responsibility of curating the learning of the organisation. How can we make the most of L&D budgets with innovative approaches for smarter investment?
We consider 10 insights on maximising resources and driving organisational growth.
WE CAN RATIONALISE L&D INVESTMENT TO FIT THE BUDGET OR RATIONALISE L&D INVESTMENT TO SET THE BUDGET.
We can accept that budgets are the way things are or always have been, or we can use outframing to consider what is appropriate for the need, goal or audience. Thinking about the salaries of the people involved, “we’re already spending £X00,000 on this group of leaders. What’s the appropriate % of that we should spend on their development to ensure the company hits its targets?” A robust and compelling business case could be a gamechanger for what’s possible.
What challenges are you facing in learning and development?
Not enough time to devote to a training plan
Not enough budget for training
Not enough learner participation
Measuring the impact
Manage a training program across a dispersed or hybrid workforce
Content isn’t engaging enough
No leadership support
Clunky learner system
Centralising training
Other
Source: BIZLibrary 2024 Trends in Training and Development Survey
How and when are we rationalising investment?
L&D INVESTMENT CAN CHASE UNLIMITED ENGAGEMENT OR UNLIMITED PARTICIPATION.
We love a big impact. Get people together, make it exciting, inspiring, experiential, memorable. We also see huge opportunity in going for an unlimited approach in participation. What could be opened up to the widest possible group? What training could be offered to the whole organisation? A one-hour session virtually delivered to the whole organisation or a large department could be as ridiculously low as £1 per head.
Key stat:
89% of L&D professionals agree that proactively building employee skills for today and tomorrow will help navigate the evolving future of work.
Source: LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2023
What could we offer far and wide to maximise budget?
We can talk and talk about how to spend budget, making sure we discuss until happy. But there’s a ‘cost of waiting’.
Spending a relatively small amount scoping the thing uses budget but saves a ton of time (read ‘money’) We often have conversations where ideas freeze in the name of “waiting for my new boss”. What if the idea wasn’t just a suggestion, but something properly scoped that the new boss can properly consider and easily action?
Key stat: In our L&D Insider study, less than half (47%) of respondents delivered 75% or more of their planned L&D initiatives for 2022.
Source: Interactive Workshops, L&D Insider
Key model: Information vs Relevancy
What’s the best idea for investment we’ve spoken about the most but have scoped least?
L&D INVESTMENT COULD CHANGE THE CULTURE, BUT COULD ALSO CHANGE THE COMPANY.
Is budget allocated based on desired culture or desired commercial goals? Tap in to company targets. If that’s cultural, great. Otherwise, getting the clarity on what the vision and goals of the organisation are gives an otherwise free reign L&D effort focus and accountability. We can plan backwards from the company goals to determine initiatives, and planning backwards to allocate spend strategically.
Which commercial or organisational objectives are the L&D goals aligned to?
Key data:
Source: CIPD
Is L&D the only department that can be given a budget and not asked specifically to deliver an ROI? Name another department spending without tracking metrics on the results… Whilst some of important benefits of learning and development are difficult to measure, we can still seek measurables to justify L&D spend through measurables. Often, this is best decided from the outset, getting the lay of land before we’re into development, and tracking throughout and reviewing afterward.
Source: LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2024
Are we delivering on our L&D investment based on opinion or measurable data?
L&D INVESTMENT CAN HIGHLIGHT MONEY SPENT OR MONEY SAVED.
We can consider estimating the value of any L&D provision. What’s this worth to the company to fill this gap? To properly equip leaders? For early career to have the skills to thrive? What would that do to the culture and commercial performance? What financial impact could we anticipate? (e.g. Improved retention is money saved)
Key data:
Coaching Question
What’s the value of our next big upcoming L&D initiative?
We can build a leadership programme that can run and run and run. Minimal tweaks. It’s smartly designed and it works for the organisation and its leaders at all levels.
Or, we can go with a more agile, power-up approach of designing an experience that works over the next two or three months. Tailored to the now. Pivots are easy. Plans aren’t out of date before they can be delivered on. Two valid approaches to get the most from the investment.
Key stat: Addressing the skills gap is the number one priority for L&D professionals (29%). However, they are prioritising inputs (for example, increasing self-directed learning) over outputs (for example, speeding up the transfer of learning).
Source: CIPD Learning at Work Report 2023
Is our organisation suited to programmes or powerups?
L&D INVESTMENT CAN BE EMPATHETICALLY-DRIVEN OR ENTREPRENEURIALLY-DRIVEN.
HR and L&D teams play a key role in plugging gaps, taking requests, and meeting individual, departmental, and organisational needs. This people-focussed approach stops the ship sinking and keeps the crew happy. But what about the ship’s course? What unexpected adventures are on the horizon that the crew couldn’t possibly have requested? An entrepreneurial mindset has us looking past what the org of the now is requesting and lands on what the org of the future will love.
What is needed in the organisation of next year, or five years’ time?
Let’s think about the financial model. Centralised budgets give control and enable big decisions for smart investment. High amounts of delivery are possible, reacting entrepreneurially to the market every 12 months or more. Delivering learning initiatives on a decentralised budget-per-head allows for some scaling up or down. The decentralised budget empowers leaders and learners to make smaller, investment decisions easier. Both offer ways to make bright investments.
Key data:
Source: Statista
Coaching Question
How well does our financial model work for the best L&D?
We love getting into a project. Take a brief, share some insights, propose something brilliant and make it happen. Job done. And we’ve had the pleasure of organisations such as Samsung, Bloomberg and Philips tap us on the shoulder and ask “Can you help us run this?” (We can.) There’s another way we love to work, offering L&D as a service. Clients like Cisco, Siemens, and M&S have found that partnerships are a smart way for L&D teams to invest in ‘on tap’ resources. Whilst there are all the benefits of an ongoing subscription (no constant paperwork, pitching or approval processes), there’s also the flexibility of deciding the support month-by-month and the power of an agency incentivised to say ‘yes’ at the fingertips.
Key stat: “44.4% of surveyed organizations are actively pursuing partnerships with comprehensive solutions providers within the next year. This trend reflects a strategic move towards consolidating vendors, with an emphasis on finding all-in-one providers capable of addressing compliance, upskilling, and leadership needs.”
What would a partnership look like for our organisation’s L&D investment?
We are an award-winning L&D agency igniting and equipping the world’s most exciting companies for the adventure of work. Our clients choose us for innovative learning and development workshops, webinars, eLearning, coaching, leadership development and L&D marketing collateral.
Intrigued about a work adventure we could start? We’d love to spark something together.
A go-to guy for simple ways to solve big problems, Chris taps into the power of partnership to help others get faster, brighter, closer, and stronger.
chris@interactiveworkshops.com +44 (0) 783 700 7201
Leading projects on a global basis with the likes of Siemens and Cisco, Milly uses her unique blend of sharpness and creativity to get results.
milly@interactiveworkshops.com
