Picture the scene: a management team is meeting to discuss what company expenditure is justifiable before they send their final thoughts to the CFO. Perhaps cutbacks need to be implemented to steady the ship.

These are tough decisions that every IT business has to make every month, probably now over many years. Perhaps the outcome could be a reduced headcount or a cut in the staff training budget. I hope it’s not the latter.

I realise that every penny in the corporate pot is precious, but I would strongly urge IT firms against axing or reducing staff training and certifications. Why? Well, it’s down to strong evidence of the positive attributes these both bring to the workplace.

Research from IDC has found that 80% of IT managers believe effective training is critical in delivering successful IT projects. Additionally, Global Knowledge reports that IT training is, encouragingly, on the up; it found that the number of organisations planning to send staff on IT training courses to boost skills rose from 63% in 2011 to 80% last year.

What is pleasing about the statistic above is that it is the employer pushing the need for training to improve skills, not the employees who need to take the lead. We’ve all received appraisals where we’d like to have asked to attend training courses, but are often worried that the pot with the training budget is a little too empty. An even worse scenario is if we don’t get our employer’s backing to attend training and certification programmes.

So, we know that training is in demand and is beneficial, but what about certifications? How useful are they? Well, in short, they are very useful. Certifications provide two fundamental company benefits.

Firstly, the recruitment process can use certifications to help determine whether a candidate has the necessary skills to succeed. Research has found that among 800 US IT managers responsible for hiring, 62% agreed that IT certifications provide a desirable knowledge set for many IT roles. In fact, US HR professionals see the potential in certifications, with 81% expecting to see growth in this area over the next two years.

Secondly, certifications can play a role in building a productive team. Global Knowledge found that 92% of companies witnessed increases in staff effectiveness following certification. Additionally, IDC research found that organisations with higher percentages of certified staff demonstrated improved operational performance in several areas, including endpoint security, network availability, and on-time application deployment.

So, in summary, training and certifications are potentially a good return on investment for business productivity. It’s time to shout louder about this – ideally within earshot of the your CFO ahead of the next senior management team meeting.