Do businesses really not have any budget?

[outofofficeagain]

I have been self-employed for 15 years and recently changed direction, delivering corporate training (well-being and DEI-related). I've done training before, but this is a new area and new target market.

It started well, but over the last few months, I've had nothing. People either do not get back to me at all or coming back with nos.

Is it the time of year? Or is it a terrible time to be doing this?

I can go on for a bit longer but getting very scared that this was all a terrible idea and I should go back to what I was doing before.

Presumably the imminent NI increase is leading to cut backs in budget. Those two areas could be seen as nice-to-have rather than business critical.

Anyone running their financial year in line with the UK tax year is very unlikely to be signing up to anything that has not already been clearly budgeted and is a business need.

I work in an area related to the diversity sector. We've had several contracts not renewed this year - we are not seen as business critical at the moment.

I manage the budget for my department and external DEI training is just not budgeted for. Huge pressure on many businessea at the moment amd external training is the first thing to be cut.

Trump has massively changed the tone on DEI with many US HQ companies (now much lower priority) and agree with PP that many companies are staring into an anticipated downturn and are going to keep spend tight

My firm just dropped the post of Chief Diversity Officer. DEI is still there, just folded into HR. I am guessing it has been de-prioritised.

What is happening across the Atlantic with DEI is not good but it is changing the culture and tone at some organisations, particularly those with US links.

None of this sounds good.

I'm panicking slightly as I've invested in website, marketing etc so need to see a return, as well as earn a living.

What I was doing before was dealing with smaller businesses and start-ups, and that feels even worse.

I feel like I've been out of employment too long to just be able to get a job!

In my experience its the first thing that gets cut when times are tough, yet its the first thing we wonder why we're not investing in. I hope something turns up for you soon.

The UK is not the US, but you can’t possibly be in the DEI and wellness field and not be aware of the massive cultural shift businesses are undergoing in the US. That is going to have an impact on any country that does significant amounts of business with the US.

My company would not spend the money on this for external training or consultancy. I'm senior in the business and we have HR directors, head of people and HRBPs and also a learning and development team. Any DEI or wellbeing will be managed in house.
I had presented a business proposal for external training for my team, role specific, declined. Do it in house/do it yourself. There really isn't the budget.

In our organisation HR takes care of this and we also have an EDI 'working group' that meets one a month made of a few employee representatives with an interest in the topic.

Basically we don't use external consultants for this.

Also I think there is a push back on EDI because it went from genuinely being about improving diversity and respect for each other in the workplace to virtue signalling...

The other issue is that the law changes frequently in the discrimination area and so you are likely to find that potential clients are inclined to go with law firms for this type of training so that they know it is completely up to date.

Can you plough the wellbeing furrow rather than DEI?

Many firms have employee assistance programmes (EAP). I imagine they will be getting more rather than fewer calls when times get tough.

It's not DEI specifically and falls more under wellbeing.

It's training around grief and loss and how managers/teams can support their staff in difficult times. So really necessary but not bright and shiny.

EAPs are great, but only really deal with the person themselves, not everyone around them.

Our EDI is managed in house as is wellbeing. I'm NHS.

but do you have external speakers/trainers on specific topics?

It's training around grief and loss and how managers/teams can support their staff in difficult times. So really necessary but not bright and shiny.

I'd say this is quite niche. I can see why a company would get an external trainer for this as it may be beyond HR to train internally. Caveat: I am not HR so this is just my view as a manager.

I think you should diversify if possible so as not to put your eggs in that one basket.

Similar story here (and similar field). I've heard the same from freelancers in the sector all over. Pipelines are dropping off a cliff.

Basically as others have said, there's a massive pushback against DEI and wellbeing stuff with this macho US culture deciding it's all unnecessary business expense that can be cut. I also think the government's hesitation on its industrial / energy approach is resulting in key businesses also hesitating until there is more clarity on national direction and values (which is pretty fucking empty at the moment) and larger contracts.

It sucks! But I suspect we have to hold our nerve and see what happens over the next few months.

Company I work for is owned by an American VC company.

The DEI person has not long "left the business to pursue other opportunities" and pretty much anything relating to it has been removed.

Very much influenced by the fact we are US owned, but I think companies in general looking to reduce costs, are going to cut DEI and well-being as much as they can.

Thank you - that's what it feels like. Lots of interest in late summer autumn but everyone now has gone very quiet indeed.

Yes - I think with a tough economic climate, you'd immediately look at cutting DEI stuff, because it's just NOT 'cool' any more. Also, to be honest, a lot of companies have done the initial work and have sort of plateaued, so merging it into general HR capability makes sense.

You could always focus on things like helping companies through re-structures... plenty of that happening prior to administrations, I imagine.

Yeah I was turning work down last summer and now I'm looking at a black hole from April onwards...!

I would say that yes, they do have budgets, but many firms will be coming to the end of their financial year at the end of March (or have recently had one in Dec), and have either allocated all their budget for that sort of thing, or haven't provided for it in the coming year. When things are tight, the sort of training you are offering is probably something that would be one of the first things to be cut. Sorry.

What size businesses are you approaching? If too small, then they are unlikely to want (or have any spare funds for) your services, and if on the big side, they probably have their own internal arrangements.

Who in the workplace is the target for your training? Grief and loss come up fairly infrequently and don’t offer require anything specialist so I wouldn’t train line managers. Possibly something for HR teams, but as others have said with businesses being clobbered with the NI increases I suspect there’s no budget

About 1000 employees. At least 500 but not the super-corporates.

Professional services have been successful, and universities.