Cost control and optimization is a business principle that applies to the entire company, including the field of training, which must provide a good return on investment. This is essential to maintain the competitiveness of the company, but it also represents a major expense item for the company. But be careful, optimizing training costs does not mean reducing the quality of the training and its content. However, today, simply buying off-the-shelf courses and using only third-party companies to develop training content is not considered to be the most economical way to carry out your training strategy. So how do you optimize your costs of training in a virtuous and effective way? The answer in five points.
Step 1: Take care of your training plan
A structured strategy makes it possible to optimize training costs. In this context, the training plan makes it possible to first measure real training needs and to prioritize them, in particular thanks to data from the GPEC (Predictive management of jobs and skills). Then, the training plan makes it possible to set up dashboards and frame training actions as well as the allocation of training budgets. It's about seeing training as an ecosystem, the training strategy makes it possible to optimize this ecosystem to minimize costs while ensuring the best efficiency and a choice of relevant tools for training. Dashboards and reporting make it possible to monitor cost indicators and the effectiveness of each item of expenditure in training.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Evaluate training needs, prioritize them
2 - Building an ecosystem of tools that allows for the optimization of expenses
3 - Determine the cost and performance indicators to be monitored regularly
Step 2: Use e-learning
When you want to optimize training costs, theelearning is a must-have in the toolbox. It is the simplest, economical, and even profitable way to deliver training content to learners. Eliminating the need for face-to-face meetings in many contexts of use, e-learning makes it possible to limit expenses, especially when traveling. Many companies use e-learning and are even seeing positive effects on productivity. In the United States, it is said that for every dollar spent on e-learning, businesses can increase productivity by $30. Among the training solutions that include e-learning, the Mobile learning is among the most economical, because it can be used from anywhere, anytime, with any mobile device and even by computer.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Determine which training courses can be provided in full or in part (in Blended Learning) via e-learning
2 - Select e-learning tools that allow you to easily create content to renew it often and that are scalable according to uses
Step 3: Use co-financing
The co-financing of training allows companies to optimize training costs. For example, some companies can benefit from public financial aid, whether European, national or regional. Among the training actions that can be co-financed, there are those that are part of a skills development plan, the professionalization of vulnerable employees, the establishment of the GPEC, the maintenance of seniors in employment, etc. In addition, Some courses eligible for the Personal Training Account (CPF) can be financed jointly by the employee via his CPF and his company. The company can also directly supplement an employee's CPF if the overall cost of his training exceeds the rights available to him at that time.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Study the company's training courses that are priority and eligible for public aid
2 - Determine which training courses can be co-financed with employees via their CPF
Step 4: Build a network of internal trainers
One of the heaviest expenditure items in a training strategy corresponds to that of trainers. If they are external to the company, an independent contractor or even a training provider, the costs can quickly become staggering. To optimize training costs, it will therefore be necessary to ensure, as much as possible, that the trainers are employees of the company. Does that mean hiring a team of trainers to form a teaching unit? Not necessarily, since it is now proven that business experts, those who practice, can be excellent trainers because of their knowledge in the field. It is therefore advisable to look within the ranks of employees at those who could constitute a network of internal trainers..
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Determine the training courses that can be provided by the company's business experts
2 - Recruit one or more trainers on subjects for which training needs are recurrent
Step 5: Valuing social learning
In the tradition of expert trainers, Call on the Social learning makes it possible to capitalize on all the knowledge held by employees, which could benefit the rest of the employees, in order to optimize training costs. More and more training ecosystems today use social learning at more or less advanced levels. Some platforms that value the learning experience as an ecosystem (LXP for learning experience platforms), allow learners to share their own knowledge in the form of text, video content, etc. Sharing links, exchanges in forums, and even the possibility of creating micro training modules makes it possible to give some of the power to create content to employees. Most often, social learning is accompanied by Gamification, which encourages users to share, but above all values and rewards their contributions.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Choose and implement an e-learning solution that allows social learning and opens up the possibility of sharing and creating content for learners
2 - Communicate with learners about opportunities for sharing content, then set up a system for rewarding contributions as an incentive.
