Cost Effectiveness Strategies

This guideline should overlay all travel and professional development decisions regardless of where the opportunity falls on the professional development continuum. The most cost efficient means for accomplishing a professional development or travel goal should be utilized.

Cost Efficiency Opportunities:

• Bring speaker in to train a group rather than taking group to external training
• Send one individual to training and have that individual train remainder of staff
• If travel to training or a seminar is essential, choose the local/regional option if available
• If travel to training or a seminar is essential, drive to location rather than flying if possible
• If travel to training or a seminar is essential and more than one person must attend, consider sharing of hotel rooms (for same-sex persons, of course)
• If travel to training or a seminar is essential, consider volunteering or presenting to reduce fees
• If a staff member travels with a student group, make certain staff travel is funded from same source as student travel
• Take advantage of self-study or computerized training/continuing education options
• Form a self-study group to obtain necessary training/continuing education and complete the program together
• Always consider in-house experts/resources first – we have a diverse knowledge base in the division
• Sending one staff person to an event to interview a number of candidates MAY be more cost effective than bringing all of the candidates to the University of South Carolina

Questions to Ask When Planning Professional Development/Travel:

• Is there a way for me to get this training/education in-house (speaker, self-study, etc.)?
• Can we bring in an expert to train/educate a group rather than sending a group to training?
• Can one person accomplish this goal and share the information with the remainder of staff?
• Can I travel locally or regionally and can I drive?
• If others are traveling with me, can we drive together, share a hotel room, etc?
• If I’m traveling with a student group, is their source of funding covering my travel?
• Can I volunteer or present at a seminar to reduce my fees?
• Is it more cost effective to travel to one event to interview a number of candidates rather than bringing each candidate here?
• Am I being reasonable about what is most cost efficient or am I focusing on personal convenience?