Your fastest way to get employees trained, certified and back to work

Well-trained employees are more productive, but what’s the most cost-effective way of ensuring that your people have the right skills? The answer may surprise you - because training costs your business much more than the course fee, food, accommodation and exams.

Every day your staff are training, they’re not working for your business. See how much this costs you, by adding your own numbers to the True Cost of Training Calculator. Full instructions can be found below.

Notes: How to use the True Cost of Training Calculator

See how much you'll save with Firebrand within seconds. Just enter the following numbers, and the Calculator will crunch the numbers as you go. If you’re unsure about any of the numbers, or want some help completing the spreadsheet, give us a call on (0)8 44 68 27 85:

1. Many conventional training programmes require students to attend multiple courses. Firebrand does it all in one intensive course
2. How many days will the training take? Conventional training programmes are usually much longer than Firebrand’s
3. Most conventional courses don’t include the exams. Firebrand does. Enter the number of exams that you’d have to sit separately through conventional training
4. The spreadsheet automatically calculates the total days spent on training and exams
5. The spreadsheet then automatically adjusts for the fact that many Firebrand courses start or finish at weekends so they don’t take up any more of your billable time than necessary
6. Enter the prices of the alternative course you’re considering and the Firebrand course here. To find out the cost of the Firebrand course, take a look at our price list
7. Enter the cost of exams; and daily accommodation, food and travel. With Firebrand, you don’t have to worry about any of these costs
8. The spreadsheet automatically calculates the total direct costs (training plus exams, accommodation, food and travel)
9. Here’s a critical line: what is your time worth? If you’re an independent contractor, what’s your day rate? If a company employee, what are you billed out at?
10. Now for the true cost of training: the spreadsheet automatically takes all of the above factors into account. How much will you save with Firebrand?

Recession-busting skills are in short-supply and at a premium, so how can you improve your organisation's skills without blowing the budget?

It seems as if every organisation today is expected to achieve more, faster with the same or fewer resources. But to become leaner and meaner, organisations are having to look to new systems and technologies such as open-source, virtualisation and the cloud.

These technologies can deliver the cost savings and the business-edge that’s required. But the development and management expertise required to implement and build the new IT solutions is in short supply - and out of the reach of most organisations.

Is there really a skills crisis?

Big businesses with deep pockets are snapping up the most tech-savvy developers. While many of the best programmers choose to work for new start-ups that are fun and exciting, and where they may have the chance to become a millionaire overnight. This leaves a skills gap that needs to be bridged.

A solution to this is to train your own teams to have that expertise, and provide them with the certifications to prove it. But the time and money required for traditional class room training - or e-learning - can leave your organisation more over-stretched than before.

How to accelerate your learning

The alternative is Firebrand’s unique Accelerated Learning model. Your employees can be trained and certified at twice the speed of a conventional training course.

With Firebrand, your staff are back at work sooner, qualified with an industry-standard certification, and have learned from a tutor who works in the industry and has hands-on, real-world experience. We produce trained staff that are productive from the minute they complete the course.

Proof: training and certification equals more project success

In its Impact of Training on Project Success report, IDC discovered that projects allocating just 7% of the budget to training were “significantly” more successful than projects where only 4% of the budget was available.

The other half of the recipe for project success is down to testing and accreditation. IDC looked at the types of training on offer, and how that affected the overall project result. They found that the more accredited experts on the team, the more likely the project was to be successful.

The report explains: "certification of the skills obtained by IT staff members in particular is the most reliable predictor of IT project success. When projects succeed, IT can spend less time on routine installation and maintenance tasks and more time developing services that improve business processes and drive revenue growth."

The Firebrand Managed Accounts Programme (MAP) is the fastest way to get your staff trained, certified and back to work. It's simple to administer (we do the hard part), and is scalable across your business. With the Managed Account Programme you get the following:

A dedicated training consultant

When you sign-up with Firebrand MAP you are allocated a training consultant. Your consultant will assess your organisation’s current skills and needs, advise on new courses available and highlight IT trends that your business should be preparing for.

Your consultant will also be able to help you create training plans, manage your bookings and can help you with any of your day-to-day training needs.

Custom courses

Bespoke courses, based on your business needs

Vocational training

Giving your employees the skills to help support and build your business

Public schedule

Over 200 different courses available from IT to project management

Your monthly training development statement

Get a full break-down of your staff's training attended in the last month. As well as seeing what your total training costs are, you will be able to see progress against your training plan - and what your training budget is enabling the business to achieve.

The statement also lists the certificates, qualifications and exam scores for your employees, and gives recommendations for their next training steps, along with a list of the new skills they are now qualified in.

In addition, we reveal your overall Net Promoter Score (NPS) - so you can see what your employees think of the training, and compare their satisfaction levels month-by-month.

Day-to-day training management

We know that dealing with the training for a department or a whole business is a full-time job. We'll help you to reduce some of the day-to-day drudge, by transferring it to our MAP Customer Service team, allowing you to concentrate the important bits like getting the training strategy right. Our MAP team will take over the basics like enrolling employees and teams on courses, updating employee calendars and help prompt your teams to get to the training on time.

Training tools

To help you make a like-for-like decision on your training - and to help you see your savings - we have built a Total Cost of Training calculator. Why not take a look now, and see just how much a ‘cheap’ training course can actually cost.

We also offer pre-test quizzes to test students’ knowledge and training requirements, and we will be adding more apps soon.

One invoice

You may prefer a single invoice for your training – we know that many companies do. You have the option of either receiving an invoice for every training course, or a single invoice for your organisation or department. The invoice can also be configured to show separate costs for the accommodation and food costs, if your accounts department require it.

Complete transparency on costs

Balancing budgets is a tricky business and we want you to be able to get the most from your training budget. With MAP we give you the ability to see what you’ve spent so far, and see the total cost of the courses you've booked. You can see the costs of all of our courses online, including the discounts available through the Firebrand Passport.

We work directly with IT and training managers at the world's biggest companies. We help them develop their training strategy, to grow their business. Here's what some of them said about training with Firebrand:

"Upgrading and improving our IT skills and knowledge is part of winning and retaining customers for our business. But like many other businesses time is money so we were also looking for training that is fast, includes certification, is intensive and makes people more productive.

The Firebrand Accelerated Learning training is a deep immersive experience, that’s faster and has a better success rate, and quickly gets our employees to a point where they can be productive and earning revenue for the business.

We have been very happy with the training, the course trainers have a good knowledge of the subjects and supplement the course with lots of practical problem-solving experience."
Sacha Hauser, Head of FS / SCM, T-Systems

"In the past we have used training where there was no certification included and despite our best plans the trained employees never got around to taking their tests until much later, which resulted in a high test failure rate.

We decided to change our approach and tried Firebrand; With Firebrand’s 24/7 immersion, my team can concentrate 100% on the task in hand and we have seen our exam success rates rise.

Additionally because of Firebrands’ Accelerated Learning teaching methods we get our support staff back in the workplace quicker than with conventional training."
Andy Skellon, EMEA Product Support Manager, Polycom Ltd

"Towards the end of my military service I started to plan the transition into my next career, and realised that in order to maximise my employment opportunities I needed a mechanism to turn the skills and experience that I developed in the Army into qualifications that civilian employers would recognise and respect.

Whilst serving with the Royal Signals I had attended a CISSP 7-day boot camp with Firebrand during which I enjoyed the training experience and also passed the associated exam. At the end of my career with the Army I returned to Firebrand, but this time paid for the 4-day Certified Information Systems Manager (CISM) course using funding provided by the Enhanced Learning Credits Scheme.

I successfully completed the course and again passed the exam, gaining an industry recognised ISACA CISM certification. By combining my security certifications with my experience gained in the military and my personal qualities, I was able to leave the Army and promptly start a great new career with a London-based 'Big Four' security consultancy."
Howard Skidmore, Information Security and Cyber, e-skills UK

"We are an expanding business and we need a well-motivated and highly-skilled workforce. Investment in this training is showing benefit – in greater efficiency and flexibility – and our Firebrand Training account manager, has been helpful in advising on, and organising, our technical training programme."
Phillip Rudd, Director, Soltec Computer Systems

How will Accelerated Learning save you £1,000s?
Try the True Cost of Training Calculator to find out

"Not many training providers offered what we needed – Microsoft Dynamics AX; we were desperate to gain certification quickly. It boils down to cost more than anything – when you factor in accommodation and travel – it's all under one roof."
Alex Davis, IT Manager, Dabs.com

"Firebrand helps CONET to keep up to date on all technological aspects concerning its Microsoft solution portfolio. On this basis CONET's consultants and software engineers are able to achieve high quality results and create innovative solutions for our customers' benefit."
Mario Strüder, Head of Procurement CONET Germany

"We chose Firebrand due to the speed that we could get certified. Their accelerated learning approach meant that we could achieve this within our tight deadlines. Gaining the competency provides evidence of our skill set, capabilities, and expertise to our customers. It also sets us apart from other providers in a very competitive market place."
Shaun Dodson, Senior Technology Officer at consultants Moore Stephens