Paying for your own courses, is it the done thing?

[Z064life]

Hi,
My employer actively provides training but to accomodate my career aspirations, I am considering paying for some of my own training courses (one in mind is £1200).

Just wondering, is it something that anyone here does (paying for their own training)? I work in IT and we have a training budget of £1500 per head my company has let me go over.


The other point is that training being repaid when you leave is in the contract but is never fully enforced, it's patchy between leavers.


Thanks

[rog007]

Z064life said:

Just wondering, is it something that anyone here does (paying for their own training)?
Thanks

Yes.

I’ve developed myself with a blend of employer and self funding. Employer funding most often related to the job at hand. Self funding for things that were either of particular interest to me but not directly related to the role at the time or where I was looking at getting myself ready for two jobs ahead.

Additionally, membership of related professional bodies has always been self funded, but worth remembering that one can claim tax relief on such membership costs.

[silent ninja]

Maybe I have bad luck, but my last 2 permanent employers, both FTSE 100 companies, were awful at providing training and education. They just didn't see the point. One middle manager said to me "why would I fund you to get training, when you'll use that to get a job somewhere else in the company? I'm not funding you for someone else's benefit!" Clearly, both were incredibly short-sighted in my view and it's exactly the attitude that pushes away talented people.

My attitude to life is that you are in control. The company you work for is not responsible for your personal development. Go and get whatever training you need to support your career aspirations - with or without employer support. Don't wait around. If it means getting another job to pay for it or working for Uber, so be it.

I am doing an OU Masters through self-funding right now. It's directly related to my profession, but trying to get my employer to fund it involved so many hoops that I eventually gave up. I wrote out a business case demonstrating how it would benefit me in my role and how it enhances my productivity at the company - this got signed off easily and all were supportive, But there was a "but..." They then asked me to go a step further and explain how I was going to teach what I learned to the other 10 people in my team so we could all benefit. It's a masters course, how is that even possible and since when did anybody else in the company study higher education and bring that back to the team? I thought this was an unreasonable request, given that I will be working full-time, studying in my spare time and have a family, so politely declined and chose to self fund. Reading between the lines, they basically didn't want to fund it (probably because it would set a precedent?) but didn't want to say no either.

The particular role I am in is in good demand and I have little loyalty to my company now. To me, a job is not just about collecting a salary, but paramount is what I learn in the job and how I holistically develop. They've shown our values differ in this regard. Will be moving on in the latter part of 2018 when I've closed out a few of my big projects and initiatives. I did the same a few years ago when my then employer refused to fund a procurement course (and I was working in procurement!) so I did the course anyway then moved on to a more senior role. Why wait around?

[surveyor]

I’m required to maintain CPD. We’re I employed I would expect my employer to pay for it.

[rog007]

CFO asks CEO: What happens if we spend money training our people and then they leave?

CEO: What happens if we don't and they stay?


Richard Branson has said: "Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to."

http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/look-after-y...

[MitchT]

silent ninja said:

My attitude to life is that you are in control. The company you work for is not responsible for your personal development. Go and get whatever training you need to support your career aspirations - with or without employer support.

Exactly this.

I've had employers provide training that enhanced my ability to do the job was doing there and then, but wasn't necessarily the thing I wanted to be doing in the future, so I've sourced my own training to get the skills I needed to pursue my goals beyond whatever employment I was in at the time. It's well worth it.

Short e-learning courses are a good place to start. They don't cost a fortune, don't suck up a massive chunk of your life, but do give you a taste of what you're thinking of doing so you have a fighting chance of knowing whether it's truly what you want.

[anonymous-user]

rog007 said:

Z064life said:

Just wondering, is it something that anyone here does (paying for their own training)?
Thanks

Yes.

I’ve developed myself with a blend of employer and self funding. Employer funding most often related to the job at hand. Self funding for things that were either of particular interest to me but not directly related to the role at the time or where I was looking at getting myself ready for two jobs ahead.

Additionally, membership of related professional bodies has always been self funded, but worth remembering that one can claim tax relief on such membership costs.

I'm in the same camp as Rog. Currently studying self funded part time Msc over 3 years. Highly recommend it to anyone considering going down this route.

[anonymous-user]

As a perk of designing training programmes for a living I get to do an awful lot of learning, not all of it relevant.

As well as a mix of company funded and self funded. A lot of the company funded ones haven't always been that relevant, but some decent ones over the years.

Where training has been linked to a better role I have self funded, such as gaining PRINCE2 as the majority of PM gigs required P2 as a door opener.

I will be doing a MSC next year, but I will get that for free as I designed the degree programme and they need a extra guinea pig/mole for the first cohort.