Development is the key. Employees allocate thousands of euros for personal and professional training

The economic situation that we feel in recent years has led to important changes in all areas. Motivated by diminishing budgets allocated by companies to training of employees on one hand, and the desire to perform in a difficult market, on the other hand, more and more employees don’t wait to be sent on company trainings, but their pay professional development courses themselves.

“Increasingly more employees, especially at the top and middle management, allocate own funds for training, but also for thorough evaluation and business coaching. Thus, a top manager allocates between 2500-4000 euros / year when they realize the need for personal and professional development, “said Petre Nicolae for wall-street.ro, managing partner in the training and consultancy company CBC Romania.

And in such a difficult market, the quality makes the difference, employees understand the importance of training and take action.

“The complex certification programs organized by Exec-Edu, the percentage who pay on their own fee increased year by year, reaching 30% in 2013 for some courses. This happens on the one hand because managers are beginning to be aware of the importance of investing in their training continuously, without waiting for an employer “to send them to training.” On the other hand, companies’ budgets target rather the courses customized and in-house, attended by a large number of people and where efficiency is the highest in terms of cost per participant, “said Oana Scarlat, marketing director the company’s training Exec-Edu.
According to her, companies, halting investments in courses organized outside the company, is a dangerous measure in the long term.

“Managers lose such an opportunity to exchange ideas and views with other participants, to leave the company and understand market trends, to further evaluate competencies in relation to the level of other professionals to make networking quality and even business colleagues, “said Scarlat.

2013 in training – “The courses are not paid to cover only one need”

Most companies that have opted this year for training programs have changed the allocation of money, targeting “long-range”goals. “There were no courses contracted to cover specific training needs, but budgets were allocated for integrated programs, starting from assessing current needs and making a clear career plan for each employee, “said Petre Nicolae.
Also, in recent years the number of employees of companies participating in training programs has declined, and currently with the same budgets, companies prefer to invest in employees who have a real potential for development.

“Companies that have a coherent HR prefer to conduct a thorough evaluation of staff and based on the results, identify potential employees in which to invest,” he added CBC.
Moreover, companies will increasingly more to increase people’s level of commitment and his retina.

“The focus is on increasing the level of engagement of employees in order to increase performance, retention and creativity. Thus, a resurfaced trend, is increase the level of engagement and retention of valuable employees through participation in development programs “, said Oana Scarlat.

Another trend in this year in the training market is the shift to integrated transformational programs that are focused not only on the transmission of knowledge, but also the transformation of managers and equip them with skills so that they become consultants for their own companies.