The particular bank in question spends five times that amount to mow its lawn, maintain its carpet, or put supplies in the lobby. When did we as training professionals get so disrespected? Why wasn’t the Training Manager’s decision good enough? There are a couple reasons.

First, the higher in an organization a person ascends, the more likely they are to be self-motivated and even self-trained. It’s often the “I learned our system in two days; why does it take them ten?” syndrome.

Second, and maybe most important, we work in the financial industry. Most of our senior executives didn’t come from the philosophy department of the universities. They’re quantitative thinkers, and it’s just their nature to think in terms of numbers combined with the fact that the financial industry is a numbers business. So what does all that mean?

In many cases we don’t position training in a quantitative way. As Trainers we’re schooled in performance improvement, retention, and time of training. Unfortunately we don’t benchmark those items well enough to do genuine analysis and comparative measurements.

How much easier would the Training Manager’s presentation have been if she had said, “Currently our compliance courses have improved performance by… and further the total time taken is … and in addition, studies show the interactivity increases… and in conclusion, the net savings is $4,352 per quarter at an annualized rate of…”

We all know you don’t have all the data necessary to make a presentation like that, but try to do two things:
1. Start today to collect and benchmark data for the future
2. Don’t discount the data you already have.

Example:
Take the largest group of employees that you have – your Tellers, for instance. Here’s a sample formula for determining Teller training costs:

Most of this data is readily available to you, but it represents the kind of positioning and decision-making material quantitative thinkers need

One last thing… do your learners and your financial institution a huge favor. If you’re going to the trouble to quantify training for your senior executives, YOU be the champion for the learner. Be sure what you are justifying is worthwhile, measured, interactive, experiential and effective because no one above you in the decision will evaluate that!

Stand up for our profession. Be responsible for the training and the training decisions, but position your decisions in ways other executives will relate to and understand.