In economic uncertainty, organisations do everything in their power to keep hold of their top talent. With that said, it is still important to ensure that the needs of the wider workforce, which may contain the top talent of tomorrow, are engaged.

A skilled and involved workforce is a critical differentiator for organisations in today's challenging business environment and requires a strong level of commitment from an organisation. Learning & Development (L&D) supports employee engagement by nurturing talent and assisting employees to develop. Outsourcing an organisation’s L&D needs can be a great way to continue that investment and also experience strategic benefits such as economies of scale around brokerage and supplier purchasing power.

Often there is a misconception that SMB’s L&D budgets are too small to take advantage of these benefits; however, this is not the case. We recently conducted a study at the World of Learning conferece and exhibition which found that medium-sized businesses are leading the way in providing a proactive L&D strategy; it is actually the larger enterprises that are lagging behind. They are missing a trick by not having a measurement strategy in place for L&D interventions. In a time of economic pressure it’s more important than ever to be able to demonstrate a return on your investment (ROI).

A well-planned and well-executed L&D programme can go a long way towards organisations improving their overall productivity, competitiveness and ultimately their profitability. Training can often be regarded by organisations as little more than a ‘nice to have’, a programme that has immediate impact on the performance of employees but not an immediate impact on the bottom line. On the opposite side of the coin, many businesses see L&D as a strategic investment and outsource L&D because external providers can often deliver more expert and varied training than can be offered in-house. There are many good reasons for an organisation to outsource their L&D needs and it is not just about making efficiency savings, the majority of companies who outsource do so because they feel they can ‘buy in’ better training expertise from outside the organisation.

Indeed, buying in better skills seems likely to increase in 2012. Our study showed that around 36% of small businesses forecast an increase in spending on outsourcing of L&D, citing changes in budgets or the business structure for their change in strategy. At the enterprise level, 8% expected an increase in L&D outsourcing as opposed to the 25% of respondents who intend to reduce spending in this area, all of whom said that budget changes were the major reason for their decision. For mid-sized businesses the picture was more balanced, with equal proportions expecting increases or decreases.

Large enterprises may need to rethink their strategy when it comes to their training. In an unpredictable economic climate, those organisations who do outsource their L&D activities are taking advantage of a whole host of benefits. This will fast become the preferred approach by organisations looking to focus on their core competencies as well as reduce risk, decrease costs and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of all training activities.

Many companies focus of course on price when measuring training spend, but they often fail to recognise that the majority of their training cost is swallowed up by the management, co-ordination and administration involved in delivering L&D activities which is where outsourcing training becomes important and cost effective. Learning Management Systems are one of many examples of ancillary costs that often have a negative impact on training budgets and training schedules. Inefficient training and management processes are a sure-fire recipe for wasting money. Outsourcing L&D not only secures a more engaged workforce, it takes the administration costs out of internal HR procedures and demonstrates a beneficial ROI to the business as a whole.