As a Training Director, I’ve had to make some very serious choices regarding tools, processes and people. As a small outfit, the reason for making most of those choices boil down to ensuring we are implementing the most cost-effective options. That is a common story… Training departments are often not as rich as other departments, and therefore, often have to save money while cutting corners as seldom as possible. So how did I do this?
DISCLAIMER: I realize not every Training department will have the organizational support to implement each of these changes. However, it is definitely worth a try.
TECHNOLOGY
At first, we had our own subscription to a video hosting service to embed client videos. This one required a partnership with our Marketing team. Come to find out, they also needed a video hosting service. Luckily for us, our needs between the teams were very similar, and Marketing has a much larger budget than my team, so we’ve been able to piggyback on their video hosting tool. Of course, you can go with a free hosting tool like YouTube. While it does have some great features, we needed more in the way of security and locking down video access.
We also were very fortunate in the way of our LMS. Instead of bringing on a third-party, off-the-shelf vendor, we use our internal shared services team who manages the backend of the LMS across the organization. We manage content and settings. This saved us (and our users) tens of thousands of dollars, as we do not have to pass costs on to them. Another alternative could be to use an open-source LMS (like Moodle), if you and your team are comfortable with installing and maintaining/updating the LMS (or strike a deal with the IT team to do so).
PEOPLE
I call my team is small, but mighty. At a certain point, though, we definitely need extra help. Without the budget to hire an FTE, we explored the world of outsourced contract work. I was fortunate to be able to interview a few highly-qualified contractor applicants and was very pleased with the process overall. It saved my team thousands of dollars and we were still provided with the help we needed to get the work done.
What are some ways you helped to save money for your team? I’d love to hear!