Training During a Recession by Michael Laff

Recession fears shake training budgets and rouse new ways to cope.

Cancelled leadership classes, travel restrictions, and broken links on the online university site are the training professional’s worst fears during an economic downturn.

The current climate is causing many training leaders to step back, if not cut back, and rethink how they deliver training. Travel reductions are an obvious first step, followed by increased online offerings. Panic has not set in inside training departments, and most organizations report pressure to do more with the same budget without being asked to reduce expenditures outright.
No workplace analyst believes that times are as severe as the downturn earlier this decade. Tom Starr, leader of learning and employee development at Booz & Company consultancy, classifies the current climate as status quo, with selective cuts to programs. He recalls darker days in the 1990s when DuPont placed a two-year moratorium on training. Nothing in the current climate resembles such a drastic step.
“Maybe struggling business units are making cuts, but there’s no corporate or enterprisewide moratorium,” Starr says.

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Source: American Society for Training & Development