Supporting employees to develop themselves professionally, and occasionally personally, is a key aspect of engaging and retaining staff as well as helping your business to grow and thrive with highly skilled staff.
Training can be expensive though and businesses need to ensure that their investment is protected. The last thing any business needs is to pay large sums of money to develop staff who subsequently leave and take their newly acquired skills and qualifications with them, without the business having received any sort of return and benefit on their investment.
In order to protect your business and the investment you make in training and development it is wise to use what is known as a training cost agreement. These agreements confirm the financial support that you will provide to an employee in order to pay for specific training and the terms and conditions that are relevant to that support.
For example, your business may agree to pay the full costs of the training or qualification along with an agreed amount towards course materials, exam fees, registration charges or other associated expenses. It is important to also be clear in the agreement about the circumstances in which the employee becomes liable for reimbursement of all or parts of the costs so that they are absolutely clear in relation to the terms and conditions of the financial support that they are signing up to. These terms and conditions should be specific around what happens if the employee fails to make satisfactory progress on the course, if they fail to attend or submit work and if they leave employment with you either during the course itself, or within a set timeframe after having completed the course. Usually, an agreement will detail the percentage of costs to be repaid and the relevant period which more often than not is on a sliding scale.
Using a training costs agreement not only protects your business but it actually demonstrates to employees that you take their development seriously and are committed to them deploying their learning with you. You can reinforce this message with regular reviews and support during the period of the training or qualification course as well as afterwards to provide additional support and opportunities for discussion and development. Courses often include some form of practical project element or primary research task and so make sure that employees are given sufficient time and scope to use their day to day work for this purpose, it might actually bring additional benefits to the business. A clear career pathway linked to the qualification is also ideal so that the employee can see where their newly acquired skills and knowledge will lead and how their role and career will evolve with you.
Do you have questions about training?
Give us a call at CUBE HR on 01282 678321, we’ll be happy to advise you and we have policies and templates available to meet every HR need.
Why not check out our blog on a similar topic Does My Business Need A Training Matrix?
We also have a YouTube channel with loads of handy videos.
