Is it time to look at what development programmes really mean to you and your firm? Fee-paying hours versus investment hours (the true costs of training and development for your firm). This is about understanding the true cost (and investment) of training and development and what this means to you and your firm.

I hear professionals talking about “time away from the job” and “reduced fee-earning hours”. Yes, these things are true.

Let’s look at how we might take an alternative view of them.

• Investment time
• Growth time
• Efficiency time
• Developing effective behaviours
• Brain-building time.

If you reframe the way your team approaches learning and development, you are going to get so much more out. A simple shift in positioning with you and your team can reap many rewards.

I am working with a small group of professionals today and we have talked about the fee paying hours versus the investment their firm is making in them.

Here is what we covered about their firm’s investment in:

• All of their salaries are in one room at one time. Working in partnership to shape a development programme focused on their specific needs.
• Time away from their job.
• The potential cost of being trained on the wrong information (learning a poor set of skills)
• The cost of the training room and materials
• The cost to bring us in to deliver the workshops

All of these costs and investments mean that the training needs to really hit the spot and answer all of their specific questions. They reacted well, engaged asked sensible challenging questions and really dug into the material and made great steps forward about how they apply this with each and every client.

Are you and your team tuned into this investment?

Do you know what return you are getting on your investment?

As a professional services organisation are you considering fee-paying hours versus investment hours (the true costs of training and development for your firm)? Do you need to ensure you can answer all of these questions so you and your team are bought into training and development from the very first moment?