Training in these difficult times

There is a constant dilemma in every organisation, particularly in these economic times – how do you justify the costs and ‘time off the job’ for employee training. And yet the overall efficiency of a company depends on the current expertise of its employees.
During protracted times of economic downturn the first thing that tends to be cut by companies is employee training. We recently heard that a major government organisation has only allocated R10 000 for fleet management training for their current financial year! Talking to other companies it sometimes seems that training projects are seen as luxuries rather than part of their business planning.

If you want run your fleet on a cost effective basis, training of your fleet management staff has to become a long term strategy rather than a short term fix. Fleet managers need to have specific fleet management skills and need to play a serious part in the overall company’s strategic planning. With a fleet of 100 vehicles costing some R11 million a year and assets valued at about R15 million, this is not a job for just anybody in your organisation.

Cutting your training budget might save you some costs in the short term but it will definitely have a long term effect on your fleet operating costs in the long term. Without solid fleet management expertise and specific KPIs, your fleet manager could well be having a difficult time meeting this year’s budgets.

FleetCUBE company audits on fleet operations have shown that the average fleet’s costs are about 18% higher than they should be. The main reason has always been the lack of fleet management expertise at executive and fleet manager level.

Executive management must take the lead in developing and maintaining their levels of fleet management expertise in their companies. Every rand saved on your fleet operating costs goes directly to your bottom line and this in turn has a beneficial impact on your total business turn over.

The effective return for your training investment

The FleetCUBE five day intensive fleet management training course costs R15 538 (incl VAT) a person.
The operating costs for a fleet of 100 vehicles is R11 million. This makes the cost of the course about 0.15% of your operating costs. AND the potential benefit is that a well trained fleet manager should be able to reduce these operating costs by at least 8% - an annual saving of R880 000 a year!

Contact Cheri Louw at our offices 011 782 9211 for more information on the FleetCUBE internationally recognised fleet management training courses.