Sequestration resulted in increased scrutiny of training and conference spending and less approval for those expenditures, but the Merit Systems Protection Board has warned that the longer term impact of too little training could wind up being more costly than short-term savings.
Efforts to prevent excessive spending on employee training and development may also inadvertently increase the risk that agencies will invest too little in those areas.
MPSB found recently that the percentage of federal employees that feel they need more training to do their jobs effectively increased from 32 percent in 1992 to 48 percent in 2005.
Existing skills and knowledge, accompanied by stopgap measures to keep employees abreast of new developments in their fields, may compensate for reduced training and development in the short term but over time could harm morale, workforce capability, mission accomplishment, and the ability to recruit and retain good employees, according to MSPB.
It added that too much justification and too many requirements to approve training or development could be as harmful as too few controls, and too much red tape might stifle needed development and eat up time and effort better spent on agency missions.
