How to make training work when budgets are tight, staff are stretched, and turnover is high
If you’ve ever sat in a budget meeting, you’ll know that the conversation around staff training often feels like a tug of war. On one side, there’s the undeniable need: staff need to feel confident managing challenging behaviour, organisations need to meet regulatory requirements like BILD Act, and most importantly, the people you support deserve safe, compassionate care.
But here’s the reality many decision-makers face:
- Staff turnover means you’re constantly investing in training new people, only to lose them.
- Services are already short-staffed, so pulling colleagues away for training leaves the floor stretched thin.
- The cost of cover, agency shifts, and operational disruption often outweighs the training costs themselves.
It’s not that organisations don’t want to invest in their teams, it’s that the current models of training don’t always work with the day-to-day pressures of social care. In this article, we’ll explore why that is, and what can be done to make training more effective, flexible, and sustainable.
When Training Feels Like a Cost, Not an Investment
Training should strengthen your service. But when it clashes with your reality, it can start to feel like just another pressure:
- High turnover = lost investment. Every time a trained member of staff leaves, you don’t just lose them, you lose the money, time, and energy invested in their training. With turnover in the sector hovering around 30%, that loss adds up fast.
- Staffing shortages make release near-impossible. When rotas are already tight, sending even one staff member to a multi-day course can feel unmanageable. Colleagues are left overstretched, or agency costs rise to fill the gaps.
- Compliance vs. culture. There’s a pressure to “tick the box” for compliance, but leaders know training needs to do more than that. It needs to shift culture, boost confidence, and reduce incidents, otherwise, it’s money and time wasted.
What Makes Training Work in Practice
The organisations who see training as an investment rather than a drain are usually the ones who find models that work with their challenges, not against them. That often looks like:
- Flexibility in delivery. Training spread across shorter, more manageable sessions, or a blended model of e-learning and in-person, so staff don’t have to be pulled from the floor for days at a time.
- Building internal capacity. With a Positive Behaviour Management Train-the-Trainer model like ours, you equip your own staff to deliver ongoing training in-house. That means less reliance on external providers, fewer disruptions, and more consistency.
- Real-world relevance. Training designed around the actual behaviours, risks, and pressures of your specific setting, whether that’s dementia-related aggression, escalation cycles, or safe use of non-restrictive physical interventions.
- Sustainable outcomes. Staff who feel confident and supported are more likely to stay. Good training is a retention tool.
Why This Matters
Every leader in social care is balancing the same pressures: compliance, safety, and culture on one side – stretched budgets and staffing shortages on the other. The danger is when training becomes just another burden rather than a solution.
Finding an approach that fits your reality doesn’t just save money in the long term, it means your staff spend more time where they’re needed most: on the floor, supporting the people who rely on them. That means utilising courses that reflect the reality of your service, empowering your own trainers, and encouraging staff retention long after the course is over.
Final Thought
The real cost of training isn’t the course fee, it’s the disruption when rotas collapse, the frustration when staff feel it doesn’t reflect their work, and the drain when trained staff leave.
When training works with your challenges – flexible, relevant, and sustainable – it becomes one of the most beneficial investments you can make. It protects your budget, strengthens your teams, and ensures the people you support receive the safe, person-centred care they deserve.At Timian, our training is structured to fit your organisation’s unique requirements. If you’d like to explore how a more flexible approach could work for your team, get in touch.
