THE TRAINING ALLOCATION GRID (TAG)
- for the strategic distribution of the training budget.

By Roy Zazeraj

Are we spending our precious training rands appropriately? Are they directly supportive of the strategic requirements of the organisation? Are they making a coherent contribution to the industry, profession or economy?

The strategic importance of the acquisition, growth and development of human capital is recognised by most modern organisations. However, this importance is not always reflected in the amount and efficacy of the ongoing training spends.

Then there is the National Qualifications Framework (NQF). Through its manifestations, South Africa has embarked on a significant national initiative to put emphasis on the education, training and development of its population. Organisations have responded, some willingly subscribing to the spirit of the initiative, some merely to ensure they can recoup some of the Skills Development Levy. Whatever the reasons, we are spending more money, directly or indirectly, on the training and development of our people.

But there is not an inexhaustible supply of funds, business is increasingly competitive and T&D budgets are often the first to be pruned. Amongst other things, this has led to an increasing need to ensure that the MAXIMUM benefit is gained from every training rand spent.

In order to achieve this, a coherent strategy is required for the allocation of the approved T&D budget, or for building the motivation for the budget in the first place. To assist in this process the author has developed the Training Allocation Grid or TAG (Figure 1), as an easy guide for asking and answering some important strategic questions.

The TAG was designed after some simple "action" research, and although the examples used here are specifically for management T&D, it should be relatively easy to create similar TAGs for other forms of training.

Rationale

In looking at the question of WHY training of managers tends to take place in organisations, it was decided to look at some real world examples, rather than stated intentions, or training policies.

This revealed that training falls into three main categories, namely,

1. Preventative This represents the ongoing T&D of managers, or the deliberate process of "growing" managers for current and future needs. This form of training tends to be educational and developmental in nature and is consequently proactive. It also tends to be person focused and process based, i.e. an incremental management development programme that all managers are exposed to from time to time as they progress through the management hierarchy. It can also be viewed as generic training, and has a further tendency to be normative, i.e. based on the "ideal" manager.

2. Curative
This can be seen as "fix-it" training. A specific manager is deemed to have a particular training need as a result of some displayed inadequacy. It is therefore therapeutic or remedial by nature, and is reactive as a consequence. As with Preventative training, it tends to be person focused. However, it is menu, as opposed to process based, i.e. a particular form of training will be selected from the available menu, to suit a particular need. Again it tends to be normative, but is specific rather than generic. A good example of Curative training would be post Assessment Centre training that is based on specific management dimensions, such as planning and organising.

3. Operational
Here we arrive at the "bottom-line" focus. Training takes place in order to help meet specific operational objectives, in a given operating period, e.g. production or sales targets, cost reduction, lower absenteeism etc. It could therefore be preventative or curative, reactive or proactive. It differs from the previous two categories in that it tends to be strategy based and is contingent rather than normative. Like Curative training it is specific rather than generic.

The WHY? Categories lead us to the first set of strategic questions, namely what proportion of the available funds should be spent on which category or training effort, and on what grounds. Answers will be unique to each organisation, but should take into account both short and long term needs.

The horizontal columns stem from the question of "WHO" do we train? Here again three significant categories were discernable.

1. Highflyers
These would seem to be in the top (say) twenty percent of the management population. They are the fast-track leader/managers who quickly become highly skilled in business, management and often specialised disciplines as well.

2. Good Managers
Good Managers are more manager/leaders and are to be found in (say) the next thirty percent of the management group. Their progress is more medium paced and they often become very good as managers, but might not have the same overall business skills or inherent leadership qualities.

3. Average Managers
These are the manager/functionaries who do a sound but average job of managing their units, often taking their lead from laid down policy. Their progress would tend to be slow to medium paced and they would be found in the (say) last fifty percent of the managers under consideration for training.

This leads us on to the next set of strategic questions, namely, what proportion of the available funds should be spent on which group of managers, and for what reasons? Should the bulk of the funds be spent on the Highflyers, as they will be making eighty percent of the contribution to the organisation's success? Or should they receive less training attention as they will get to the top anyway, given their inherent skills and drive? What proportions of the budget should go towards the Good and Average Managers? Again the answers will depend on the unique needs of the organisation concerned.

THE TAG
The WHY? and WHO? questions lead us to the Training Allocation Grid. In Figure 4 the TAG is used to allocate a training budget of R100 000. Figure 5 shows its use for a simple percentage allocation and Figure 6 shows its use for the allocation of actual training interventions, to which a budget can then be allocated. These are random examples intended for illustration only.

The TAG can be made three dimensional by adding three different Managerial levels, i.e. supervisory, middle and senior, but this has been avoided in order to keep the TAG simple and workable.

It can act as a useful management tool in order to pose the appropriate strategic questions in the motivation, allocation and illustration of training funds usage.

You are invited you to do your own action research to develop a TAG suitable to your own environment, and enable your organisation to "TAG" its training funds.

Roy Zazeraj is CEO of Artique (Africa), Management and People Development Consultants, and can be contacted on 082 5145680 or e-mail roy@artique.co.za

This article last published in People Dynamics May 2003, Vol. 21 No.3