The skills and competencies needed to perform many jobs in finance and across the enterprise are shifting, as tools and technologies advance rapidly and become embedded in core workflows. In some organizations, widening skill gaps may warrant a fresh look at how training and development resources are allocated.
The median organization provides an average of six paid learning days per year for each employee. Within the 75th percentile, organizations provide eight days, double the amount of the lowest quartile, with four days per employee. This benchmarking data, collected by the American Productivity & Quality Center, represents a global sample of 5,848 organizations.
For finance and accounting leaders, as in other disciplines, skill sets and strategic approaches are becoming outdated faster than ever before. Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms are now powering core systems. Finance teams are expected to move faster, rely more heavily on data and exercise sharper judgment.
At the same time, the cost of building new capabilities is rising. An additional eight hours of formal learning per employee may sound modest. But in an organization of 1,000 people, that’s 8,000 work hours per year of salary expense, opportunity cost and time not spent on day-to-day output. Do the returns justify the cost?
Managing learning as an investment, not an expense
Finance leaders can apply the same discipline used for any other resource decision to decisions related to employee learning and development. The starting point is clarity on what the organization is trying to improve. Additional hours should be tied directly to specific capability gaps that affect performance, whether in reporting speed, the quality of analysis or the strength of decision support provided to the business.
Set a baseline. Before expanding development time, document where performance stands. Some measures will be quantitative, such as cycle times, forecast accuracy or error rates. Others may reflect managerial assessments of how effectively the team communicates insight or partners across functions. A clear starting point creates a reference for evaluating progress.
Allocate with intent. Development time should be allocated in accordance with the identified performance gaps. That may mean strengthening technical fluency in data tools and automation platforms or sending employees to industry conferences where they can compare approaches, build relationships and return with practical ideas. Exposure to peers can accelerate learning in ways formal coursework cannot. The key is to ensure that time away from day-to-day work supports defined business needs.
Reassess and adjust. After the learning period, measure results against the original baseline. If performance improves, the investment has merit. If it does not, revisit the allocation. Finance leaders routinely review capital projects and adjust course when returns fall short of expectations. Development time warrants the same level of attention.
Approached this way, learning days become more than an annual allowance or expense. Leaders can start to see them as a managed investment in the organization’s future capabilities. By investing in employees and tracking both quantitative and qualitative returns, finance leaders can also set the tone for how other functions evaluate development spending across the enterprise.
The cost of standing still
Compared to just a few years ago, the tools, expectations and pace of work have changed. But many organizations have not increased their learning investments. Choosing not to increase learning time may feel practical when budgets are tight and workloads are heavy, but doing nothing also carries risk. At the same time, increasing development days does not guarantee better performance.
In an environment shaped by automation, analytics and faster decision cycles, finance leaders can unlock value and productivity gains by carefully benchmarking and thoughtfully managing learning allocations. By handling learning day allocations in a disciplined fashion, finance leaders can model for the rest of the organization how development spending should be managed and measured.
