Negotiating a Training and Development Budget

October 25, 2021 3:01 AM

I am in the process of evaluating a job offer for an individual contributor role working directly for an executive. I am happy with the offer, but would like to have a training budget for myself to support knowledge development without having to ask for approval every time. Have you done this? Do you have this perk? What should I ask for and think about?

Additional information:
- I already have advanced degrees & would not be using this money for getting another
- This is a job in engineering with an expert-level background, but not coding
- Courses would range from those offered by professional societies, to Coursera-type courses, to perhaps a college-level course and could be tech knowledge or professional development
- I'd like a budget that can only be spent on training as it will push me to use it, instead of asking for a higher salary and trying to do it on my own.

Additional Questions
- I am thinking $3 - 5k per year. Is this inline with experiences of others who have this perk?
- Should I get this put in the offer letter? Or is that going to be a pain?
- What argument did/would you use to get convince the prospective boss?

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (5 answers total)

I think this would be most persuasive if you can identify the courses you would want to take in your first couple of years, and how they would help the company.
posted by mskyle at 6:03 AM on October 25, 2021

I don’t know about your country but in mine it would be unusual for the training budget to be tied to compensation unless it was through a formal tuition reimbursement plan. So although the fact that you’re under an executive may help, it may be that the training budget line can’t be moved to your compensation.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:12 AM on October 25, 2021

I'm an engineering manager and have administered several training budgets and benefited from company-provided training. Here's what I've seen:
- Pretty standard - if you are in an accredited degree program (MBA, MSCS, etc...), company reimburses tuition up to the IRS standard. ($5250/yr). You do need employer approval to enroll in the program, and you need to maintain good academic standing.
- Unlimited access to a specific online course provider (e.g. PluralSight, udemy, etc...)
- $50/month to be used for professional development (purchase books, online course, etc...) - if you don't use it, you lose it.
- Company-paid course attendance - communication skills, strategy, etc... Each course is negotiated with manager. Usually one or at most two courses/yr.

The closest I've seen to what you are asking for is the $50/month program, but that only works out to $600/yr and the reimbursement process is submit an expense report which your manager approves.

Congratulations on your job offer!
posted by elmay at 6:50 AM on October 25, 2021 [1 favorite]

I had something similar at a previous job, although individual requests did have to be approved. My budget was €2500/year, which is about $2900, so $3000 seems reasonable. You might also want to negotiate the number of work days you can spend on professional development (I got five per year).
posted by neushoorn at 11:43 AM on October 25, 2021

My old employer allocated $500 per person per year (with manager approval of the spending, but it was almost always a yes). It could be used for books, access to online training, or in-person classes (not degree program tuition though). It was also permissible to use work time for the training, though whether or not people did varied by seniority/how busy they were during the work day.
posted by snaw at 5:11 PM on October 25, 2021