In 2017, Companies in the U.S. spent $93.6 billion on training. That’s over $20 billion more than in 2016. Companies are increasingly investing in courses because they understand that training staff is essential for growth and sustainability. They know that if they want employees to be more efficient, flexible, adaptable, and better equipped for their jobs, they must take capacity building seriously.
But, what training do employees feel they need most? According to Workforce portal, leadership development is the number one training need of employees (selected by 65% of respondents). This makes sense when one considers that, in a tight labour market, organisations are more interested in developing their existing employees than recruiting new ones. This means that staff are continually taking on more responsibility, and so need substantial training to prepare themselves, including training on interpersonal skills (59%), communication skills (53%), managing change (52%), teamwork (52%), and creativity and innovation (36%).
This trend has also been evident here at M-Powered. Our clients, who are primarily organisations engaged in education or charitable activities, consistently list leadership and management skills, as well as creativity and well-being practices, among their training needs.
Irena Zajdel, Vice-President of Krosno Third Age University in Poland, says:
I want to broaden my knowledge about management of international projects and acquire the ability to initiate, plan, monitor, implement, and control tasks needed to achieve project goals. Building motivation in a project team and promoting proper communication between participants in multicultural teams is also a major priority.
I also want to remove barriers related to fear of communicating in a foreign language, improve my communication skills in English, and expand my knowledge and skills in relation to cultural differences. I would love to be more motivated, self-confident, and satisfied with activities in our organisation.
However, educational organisations and non-profits, unlike multinationals and other big companies, often struggle to secure funding to train their staff. Available training budgets tend to be spent on further education of teachers and trainers in fields in which they already have expertise. These organisations rarely invest in training on project management or creativity-enhancing methods. Why? Because, it is not seen as a priority. And yet, these organisations often find themselves managing ambitious projects with large amounts of funding from the EU and other national institutions. Projects that have to managed and delivered.
Gaining project management knowledge and qualifications can be very expensive and time-consuming, which contributes to the unfortunate trend of most managers of European and national projects only relying on their intuition. They learn from the successes and failures of colleagues, and they follow the funders’ guidelines. Although it is important to manage projects according to legal requirements, it is equally crucial to know how to manage communication, stakeholders, quality, risk, and change. Otherwise, projects cannot be properly implemented and there is no room for effective exploitation of results. Moreover, it has a negative effect on project managers’ motivation and work satisfaction.
The solution
The Erasmus+ staff mobility programme gives organisations involved in education (schools, NGOs, universities) the opportunity to get funding to send staff abroad for training.
Now, let’s pause for a minute: Maybe you are imagining that you can get money to send your employees to another country and you won’t have to pay a single Euro for it. How about sending them for a week to beautiful Ireland, Poland or Tenerife? All expenses paid! What if they bring home knowledge, skills, innovation, and confidence? Wouldn’t that be an amazing opportunity to motivate them and to strengthen your organisation?
Before getting too excited about this opportunity and starting your Erasmus+ application, answer these questions:
- Where do you want your organisation to be in 1, 2, 5 or even 10 years’ time?
- How will you get it from where it is now to where you want it to be?
- What skills does your staff need to meet these challenges?
- What are your staff training needs?
Once you can answer these questions, you can start to research courses that will meet the identified training needs of your staff.
Courses in Ireland, Spain, and Poland
M-Powered Projects, together with the PlinEU Association from Poland, are offering a portfolio of 9 different 5-day long courses in leadership and management, Design Thinking, personal and professional development, and well-being.
They will be run in scenic and inspiring locations in three countries—Ireland, Poland, and Spain—over the next 2 years.
We also offer professional support helping our client organisations to prepare and submit their Erasmus+ applications. Writing a successful project application is not easy. Our team of experienced project writers would like to support you. Completing the application process with our assistance is much easier than doing it on your own, guaranteeing you a higher chance of being approved for funding.
We encourage you to explore the power of education and personal development, to share good practices among your colleagues and co-workers, and to bring back knowledge to your communities, organisations, and professional ecosystems.
We challenge you to inspire and get inspired, to change lives and open minds!
