WHEN was the last time you measured the return on the investment you have made in training? How often do you commit a budget to the purchase of a product or service without carefully considering the impact of it, and what you expect the return on your investment to be? Frequently, the answer to the second question is ‘the last time we trained our staff’. Whether the training is informal, internal, or formal with assessment for qualifications, the impact is rarely measured. Indeed, measurements for whether it has been a successful expenditure, with a useful return, are all too seldom established prior to embarking on training. So where has this culture come from? Is it because we receive the messages that training is ‘good and virtuous’ and something that we should give to our staff but we can’t quite see its strategic context? Is it because, in a busy world of priorities to comply with regulations, drive up profits and improve efficiency, we leave training at the bottom of the list as ‘something else to do’ and it rarely ends up as planned activity integrated into the business’s strategic priorities? Whatever the reason, training is often missed as a key tool in business development – it can be the real difference between succeeding in fulfilling strategies and falling short of them: for example reaching key income targets, reducing attrition rates in line with required levels, and so on. Without considering the purpose of training, it is unlikely to make a contribution to your business priorities. So, training and development can and should be used as strategic tools. How? Business Solutions at City of Sunderland College supports use of training and development in a strategic context. We employ skilled sector specialists who, by asking the right questions and understanding business strategy and priorities, can deliver the right kind of training, in the right way and with the right business culture, so that it delivers the business improvements you require. If we find the improvement you wish to make through training is one that would benefit from the development of new strategies, standards or processes, we’ll support you with that too. For example, we’ve worked with organisations to help to develop standard project management processes, prior to training managers on the principles of project management and on the implementation and use of the new processes. We’ll work hard to find out what the real issues are and can even help you to develop your career and competence framework. We provide direct support to firms (and are developing new training programmes) on how to structure development so it will aid progression within your organisation and so contribute to your succession planning. But perhaps the key benefit that we offer you is working with you on setting out the measurable successes that we would both expect from the training we provide. Establishing them ensures that we focus the training appropriately – measuring them gives us real evidence of the impact – and that’s the point where you finally secure evidence of the return on your investment. Debbie Allingham is Business Solutions manager at City of Sunderland College. If you would like to find out more about how Business Solutions can support your organisation, contact her on (0191) 511-6441 or e-mail solutions@citysun.ac.uk. | 
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