30 Hours That Could Make a Difference to Your Business

For a small business, taking an employee away from their day job for training can feel like a significant commitment. When you have a team of 10, 20 or 50 people, every person has responsibilities that need covering. There are customers to look after, deadlines to meet and work that still needs to get done. Finding time for development can understandably slip down the priority list.

But 30 hours looks quite different when viewed across a full working year. For somebody working 37.5 hours a week, 30 hours represents around 1.5% of their annual working time. That leaves more than 98% of the year in which the knowledge, confidence and capability they develop can be put into practice.

The question for an employer is whether that 1.5% could make the other 98.5% more effective.

Where could you get those 30 hours back?

Consider an employee who finds a better way of completing a regular administrative task and saves just 15 minutes each working day. Across 220 working days, that amounts to approximately 55 hours saved in a year. The original 30 hours have already been recovered. The same principle can apply in less measurable ways.

A manager who becomes better at delegating may release time across an entire team. A salesperson who improves their commercial skills may handle opportunities more effectively. An employee who becomes confident using new technology may reduce repetitive administration. Someone preparing for management may be able to take responsibility that currently sits with a director or business owner.

None of these outcomes are guaranteed simply because somebody completes training. The value comes from choosing the right development for the right person and giving them an opportunity to use what they have learned. That is where SMEs should start.

Training investment has been falling

The wider picture is worth considering. The 2024 Employer Skills Survey found that UK employers spent £53 billion on training and development during the year. While that sounds substantial, it represents an 18.5% real terms reduction since 2011.

In England, training expenditure in 2024 reached its lowest level since the survey began.

Skills England also reports that average training investment in England has fallen to around £1,690 per employee, compared with £1,940 in 2019 and £2,440 in 2011, after adjusting for inflation.

There are understandable reasons for this.

Businesses have faced considerable pressure on wages, energy, materials and other operating costs. Smaller employers in particular have to make careful decisions about where limited budgets are spent. The risk is that reducing development today creates a larger capability problem tomorrow.

Look at the people you already have

Recruitment is an important part of growing a business, but it can be expensive and time consuming. Before looking externally for every new capability, it is worth considering whether somebody already working within the business could develop it.

Your existing employees already understand your customers, systems, products, colleagues and expectations. That knowledge has value. The CIPD's 2025 Good Work Index found that 34% of employees believe they have the skills to take on more demanding duties. It also found that employees who see good opportunities for development and progression are more likely to report better performance, recommend their employer and go the extra mile. They are also less likely to say they intend to leave.

For an SME, that should be worth paying attention to. There may already be somebody in your business capable of becoming your next team leader, account manager, supervisor or department head. They may simply need the opportunity and support to make that step.

Who should you invest the time in?

Training is most useful when there is a reason behind it. Before selecting employees for development, spend some time looking at where additional capability could have the greatest effect on your business.

Ask yourself:

• Where are we regularly losing time?

• Which responsibilities depend too heavily on one person?

• Who has shown the potential to take on more responsibility?

• What skills will become more important if we grow over the next two years?

• Where would one person's development have a positive effect on the wider team?

You may find that the most valuable development opportunity is not necessarily for your most senior employee.

• It could be the junior manager who has recently taken responsibility for five people.

• It could be the administrator who understands your systems better than anyone else and could help improve how they are used.

• It could be an experienced employee who could become a supervisor.

Or it could be someone early in their career who has shown potential and is ready for a greater challenge.

Development can also help you keep good people

Smaller businesses cannot always compete with larger employers on salary, benefits or corporate career structures. They can, however, give people meaningful responsibility, visibility within the organisation and opportunities to progress.

The CIPD's research suggests that employees who can see good development and advancement prospects are less likely to consider leaving their employer. That matters because replacing an experienced employee involves more than recruitment costs.

Knowledge leaves with them. Customers may lose a familiar contact. Other employees absorb additional work while the position is vacant. Managers spend time recruiting and interviewing. A new employee then needs time to understand the business and become fully effective.

Giving somebody 30 hours to develop can look considerably smaller when compared with the

disruption caused by losing a good employee.

What could this mean across Hampshire?

One employee completing 30 hours of development is a relatively small intervention. Multiply it across hundreds of Hampshire businesses and the numbers begin to look different. Our aim is to support 1,000 people across Hampshire by the end of 2028.

At 30 hours per learner, that would put around 30,000 hours of additional professional development into Hampshire's workforce. Those hours could help create new managers, stronger salespeople, more confident employees and business owners who are able to delegate more responsibility to the people around them. There is a wider local benefit too.

When Hampshire businesses develop people internally, more skills and experience remain within our local workforce. When employees progress, opportunities can open behind them. When SMEs improve their capability, they are better placed to grow, recruit and work with other businesses around them.

No individual course is going to transform Hampshire's economy. But hundreds of local employers making deliberate decisions to invest in their people can make a contribution.

Start with one person

You do not need a large learning and development budget or a complicated workforce strategy to begin. Look around your business and identify one person with the potential to contribute more.

Consider what is currently holding them back, what capability would help them take the next step and what difference that could make to the rest of your organisation.Then consider the time involved.

If 30 hours could help someone become more capable, more efficient and more valuable to your business for the next three or five years, would you consider that time well spent?