Minutes of the Training Budget Meeting

 

 

17 November

 

 

Present: Ms Graham, Managing Director (chairperson), Mr Bhupathi, IT Manager, Ms McKenzie, Human Resource

Manager; Mr Wanzel, Finance Director

Ms Graham opened the meeting by welcoming all the members and congratulating Ms McKenzie on her first month’s performance and on how quickly she’d adapted to our corporate culture. She expressed regret that Ms Armitraj (Export Manager) couldn’t attend as she had been called away unexpectedly to deal with a problem with our agent in India.

She announced that:

• the training budget would be cut by 20%this year
• the HR Department is developing a new cost-cutting strategy and explained that:

a the company would no longer be using the service of Target Training Consultants

b employee development would be more closely linked to business-growth strategies c all future training would be based on a detailed in-house needs analysis assessment

d training would be strictly limited to staff whose performances are crucial to the company’s services.

Mr Wanzel was the first to speak and suggested hiring a small independent consultant, whose fees would be considerably lower than those of a large firms like Target Training.

Ms McKenzie said that while independent consultants could be cheaper, they would almost certainly failto ensure that resources were used as effectively as possible. She argued that she would prefer to process all requests and proposals for training personally. She added that any request agreed upon by her predecessor was also currently under review.

Mr Bhupathi expressed concern about his application for training in Java and Java script for his staff. He requested that his application be given priority status. He said that he had already contacted the training centre recommended by Target Training on the advice of our former HR manager.

Ms McKenzie conceded that this training was essential but advised him resubmit his request asking for

cheaper online training.

Mr Bhupathi expressed disapproval of this idea and continued to make a case for using the training center but he final agreed to look at what is available online.

The following action points were decided upon:

• Mr Bhupathi will draw up a list of e-learning courses currently available and submit a new proposal to the HR Depatment as soon as possible.
• Ms Graham will develop a detailed needs analysis assessment questionnaire to be distributed to all

departments.

• Mr Wenzel will prepare a cost breakdown of the previuos year’s spending on training and arrange a meeting with Ms McKenzie’s department next week to discuss the newcost-cutting measures in more detail.

Date of next meeting – 12 December, in the main boardroom

 

 

Taken from Self-study book Writing skills for multi level course learners of English  : PRACTICAL WRITING

Compiled by: V. Navickien, D. Kavaliauskien, S. Pevcevičiūtė