How often does your company pay for your training courses?

Question

• Does your company offer you training courses to enhance your skills?
• How many courses per year are you allowed to take part in?
• Does your company pay for the training courses or do you have to pay for them?

Please let me know what you think about this subject and how your company treats this.

EDIT: Not many answers up to now, but it seems like companies that offer regular training courses are quite rare ...

Answer 1

Never. In 8 years I've never been to a training course... Maybe next year I will take a course to become Certified Scrum Master. But for now it's zero.

Answer 2

My previous job bought us the training kits, studying was to be done in our own time, but they would pay for the exams. I no longer work there and am a freelancer, I now bought books for myself.

I know nowadays a lot of companies offer it when you go for an interview, but I do think it's something YOU want to do, and perhaps even pay for yourself, in the end it's worth it. Especially since some companies have strings attached to it as well, read the fine print.

Answer 3

For people that are having a hard time getting their company to pay for training, many states in the US have programs to subsidize training. In Massachusetts, you can find out information for this at http://www.massworkforce.org/. I am sure that you can find something similar in other states.

Answer 4

It's something to ask about when you're thinking about joining a company.

Past experiences:

When with a Microsoft consulting company, it was important to them for me to be certified, so as an incentive, we got 40 hours and $1500 or so that we could use for training and certifications.

When at another company as a Ruby developer, we got to go to one conference per year.

It varies greatly, but it's something you have to think about, not as a benefit (because it benefits the company for you to gain knowledge fasteR), but as something that you can use to further your career.

Answer 5

My company IS my training courses provider. So many smart people around, I can learn from them every day.

Answer 6

Our employer supports us in a bunch of different ways:

1. We have a mandatory requirement of professional development (you're not allowed to be a cube turtle for years at a time).
2. Courses and conferences: our budget for this sort of thing goes up and down. It's generally a whole lot easier to get money if you are presenting a paper at the conference, of course.
3. University education up to and including supporting Ph.D. programs.

I'm in the middle of a two year program to get certified in a field that is pretty esoteric relative to many software engineers. The guy two doors down is getting his Masters Degree in Systems Engineering - he's paid to attend a day of class each week.

Answer 7

On average one training per year, my company pays the training but if I leave within two years I have to pay a partial amount. If I leave immediately after the training I have to pay everything. If I leave after one year I have to pay half the amount. After two years I'm 'free'.

Answer 8

We get a yearly allowance which can be spent anyway you choose on books, courses or conferences.

Answer 9

We get 2500 a year and 5 days set aside for travel. We have to get the 'go ahead' from our boss but its usually cool. We can also opt to spend the money on books or online courses.