I had this very discussion yesterday with my supervisor. We have $2000 budgeted per year per person, but it doesn't carry over from year to year. You can use company time, and travel is paid for, but it has to come out of the same $2000.
Our fiscal year ends on 7/31, so anything not spent as of then turns into a pumpkin at midnight. I've got a brand-new co-worker here who's just got his bearings in the company, and would like to take a A+ prep course this coming month. Since the guy's short on knowledge, it seems like a good starting point for him. At $1500, it sounds like the best thing we're going to find before the deadline. My supervisor doesn't want to approve it because "it's $1500 and it's so late in the year". What, does the amount of money available to us decrease in proportion to the amount of time left??? Where is *this* written in the policy??? The kid just started in March, he didn't have 12 months to spend this money!
Of course, he's perfectly willing to send him to $120 worthless Holiday Inn seminar. Those things aren't worth the time out of the office. Our folks need technical training, not Effective Business Meetings or whatever they're offering this month.
So the time and money allocated, whatever it may be, is in some ways less important than the policy and most of all, the people who excute it.
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I had this very discussion yesterday with my supervisor. We have $2000 budgeted per year per person, but it doesn't carry over from year to year. You can use company time, and travel is paid for, but it has to come out of the same $2000. Our fiscal year ends on 7/31, so anything not spent as of then turns into a pumpkin at midnight. I've got a brand-new co-worker here who's just got his bearings in the company, and would like to take a A+ prep course this coming month. Since the guy's short on knowledge, it seems like a good starting point for him. At $1500, it sounds like the best thing we're going to find before the deadline. My supervisor doesn't want to approve it because "it's $1500 and it's so late in the year". What, does the amount of money available to us decrease in proportion to the amount of time left??? Where is *this* written in the policy??? The kid just started in March, he didn't have 12 months to spend this money! Of course, he's perfectly willing to send him to $120 worthless Holiday Inn seminar. Those things aren't worth the time out of the office. Our folks need technical training, not Effective Business Meetings or whatever they're offering this month. So the time and money allocated, whatever it may be, is in some ways less important than the policy and most of all, the people who excute it.