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Budget constraints and spending cutbacks are affecting more than some companies’ bottom line; they’re affecting their optimism on how they plan to train their employees.

In its annual training survey, Urbandale-based ATW Training & Consulting Inc. found that when training professionals were asked what they felt was the most important issue facing them, reduced training budgets was the No. 1 response. The least of their worries was unqualified training staff.

“I wasn’t surprised, not at all,” said Mike Davis, training consultant at ATW, who is in charge of collecting and analyzing the data. “I was recently laid off at Wells Fargo (& Co.), so I’m not surprised at all. A lot of times, quality assurance and training and development are the first to get cut. It made perfect sense to me.”

The survey, which was distributed during the summer, had garnered nearly 80 responses by Oct. 1, and ATW is still receiving completed surveys.

The surveys were sent to a database of customers, partners and affiliates that ATW maintains, which consists mostly of learning and development professionals, human resources workers and freelance trainers.

ATW was able to release conclusions based on the 79 responses it had already tabulated. In the summary portion of the preliminary report, ATW noted that it was surprised more companies didn’t mention the flood or the housing crisis as concerns.

“They are concerned about the current economic state and lower budgets, but no mention of floods or a housing crisis is made,” the summary read. “This is peculiar as most of the respondents work for insurance companies.”

Furthermore, the summary noted companies’ strong interest in leadership and management training. “I would assume that during a time of recession, that many people would focus their efforts on cost containment and increased efficiencies, (yet) it seems the majority of Central Iowa training professionals feel that supervisor and manager training is their main focus now and in the next year,” the summary stated.

“Nobody is concerned about the flood, or the housing market, or how much was lost from the disaster, and these people are in the insurance business; it would seem they would be hit hard,” Davis said.

Instead, Davis said, companies are putting management training at the top of their lists and hardly mentioning negotiation training or sales training. “Everybody is concerned about the new manager,” he said. “You’re going to have (Baby Boomers) retiring here soon and Gen-X and Gen-Y are going to have to step up into leadership roles.”

Davis anticipates that ATW will prepare for the shift in interests by providing more leadership and management training.

“We’re not changing our strategies; we are preparing to adjust to our customers’ needs,” he said.