As we approach the end of 2020, a familiar conundrum may arise – what to do with your remaining learning and development budget. Many of these budgets will not roll over into 2021 and if they aren’t used, that means opportunities to learn were missed. In some cases it may also mean a cut to your budget next year if the finance team feels the unused funds were over-allocated.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic however, training has become more complicated. Where a learning and development manager might have previously organized on-site courses for teams, they now have to rely on virtual methods. For some organizations it has been a huge change in the way they are used to keeping employees’ skills up to date. You may have had to cancel classes through the year and now have an even bigger budget gap than usual.
Look at this as an opportunity to experiment and reinvent. Reinvest leftover training budgets into eLearning courses, or work with instructors to carry out live courses – but online rather than in person. Consider what the most immediate training needs are in light of the changes to work conditions. Look at what will have the biggest impact now and into next year based on changing circumstances rather than what may have been in your initial plan for 2020. For instance, with cloud usage skyrocketing, you may need to provide more cloud training to technical staff that you’d been planning in January.
Linux Foundation Training offers many options that can help. From our extensive course catalog, to our industry-leading certifications like Certified Kubernetes Administrator and Linux Foundation Certified SysAdmin, we can customize a program that makes sense for your team. This can include both self-paced eLearning courses and live instructor-led training conducted virtually. Many certification exams can be taken online in a performance-based environment with a live proctor monitoring, meaning staff don’t have to wait for testing centers to reopen. Subscription packages can also provide unlimited training opportunities to your team. And note that training can be pre-scheduled, so you can buy in 2020 but not actually partake until 2021 if you have budget that needs to be used now but your team isn’t quite ready.
Learn more about how we can help enterprise learning and development departments be successful in these trying times here, and submit the contact form if you’d like to chat with one of our experts to determine what programs will most benefit your organization.
