Training request process flowchart (request to booking)
Training request process flowchart: costed request, line manager relevance check, budget availability, threshold approval to L&D or finance, then booking.
How it works
Rename the lanes to your real roles
Replace Employee, Line manager, L&D, Finance and Provider with the functions you actually have. In smaller organisations L&D sits inside HR and Finance is a single business partner; merge those lanes rather than drawing a handoff that never happens. Keep the Provider lane even for internal courses, because an internal trainer still has to confirm a place and a date.
Define what the request must carry
Set the fields at the submission step: course title, provider, dates, delivery mode, fee, travel and accommodation, exam or certification fees, working days away, and the capability the training develops. State whether the time away is charged to the team, because that is the cost managers argue about after approval rather than before it.
Make the budget check look at committed spend
"Budget available?" should test the remaining budget after places already reserved for later in the year, not only what has been invoiced. Reserved-but-unbilled places are the reason a training budget looks healthy in month six and is exhausted in month seven.
Set the approval threshold and write it down
Take the figure from your delegation of authority schedule, state the currency, and say whether it applies to the course fee or to the total cost. Also state who approves when the requester is themselves an approver, and who approves in their absence, so the routing does not quietly default to whoever is available.
Decide what "relevant to the role" means
Give the manager a test rather than a judgement call: does the training support an objective in the current development plan, a capability the role needs next, or a requirement of the role itself? Record which one applied, so refusals are consistent between managers and can be explained later.
Give every refusal a reason and a route
"Record the outcome and reason" should use a short list - not relevant, no budget, cost too high, timing - plus free text, and it should capture refusals from the manager and the budget check as well as from the approval gate. The resubmit decision should carry a date on which the request may be reconsidered, otherwise "not now" becomes "never".
Agree the booking terms, then version the map
Decide who raises the purchase order, what the provider's transfer and cancellation window is, who bears the cost of a no-show, and who tells L&D so the budget and the training record are both updated. Then approve and version the map in QueryChart, so the process people are trained on is the one you can point at later and amendments are tracked rather than circulated as new attachments.
Frequently asked questions
What is a training request process?
It is the route an employee-initiated request for training follows before any training happens: a justification and a full cost, a line manager check that the training is relevant to the role and that the time can be released, a check that budget remains, approval by whoever holds the authority for that value, selection of a provider and dates, then a booking, a purchase order and an entry in the training record. It exists because this training was not planned or assigned, so somebody has to decide whether the organisation will pay for it and release the time.
How is this different from the training process?
This chart is the front half only. It ends at a booked place and a training record entry. The wider training process starts from a need the organisation has identified - through training needs analysis, an appraisal cycle, an audit finding or a regulatory change - and continues past delivery into competence assessment, the training record and a later check that the training was effective. Use this template when the question is "should we fund and book this?"; use the training process template when the question is "how do we know the person is now competent?".
Who should approve a training request?
Two different approvals are involved and they are often confused. The line manager approves relevance and the release of time, because that is the cost the team carries. The budget holder approves the money, which in most organisations means L&D up to a stated limit and finance above it. Write the limit into your delegation of authority schedule rather than leaving it to habit, and name the approver on the record. Where an employee's manager is also the budget holder, state who approves instead, so nobody signs off their own team's spend without a second pair of eyes.
What should a training request form ask for?
Enough to decide without a follow-up email: the course, provider, dates and delivery mode; the total cost, meaning fee plus travel, accommodation, materials and any exam or certification fee; the working days away from the role; the capability being developed and which objective or role requirement it supports; and any cover arrangements needed. The field most often missing is the time cost, and it is the one that most often reopens an approved request.
What should happen when a training request is declined?
Record the outcome and the reason in the same place, whatever stage the refusal happened at, then give the employee an explicit decision about revising and resubmitting. In this chart a manager's "not relevant", an exhausted budget and a declined approval all converge on one record step and one "Revise and resubmit?" decision, which either sends the employee back to the justification or ends at "Request declined and closed". Refusals that are only ever communicated verbally are why the same request reappears twice a year and why nobody can explain what the organisation actually funds.
Does mapping this process satisfy ISO 9001 clause 7.2?
No, and it is not intended to. Clause 7.2 (Competence) is concerned with determining the competence needed, ensuring people are competent, acting where there is a gap, evaluating the effectiveness of that action, and retaining documented information as evidence. A request-and-approval flow contributes the approval record and the handover into the training record, but the competence evidence comes from the assessment and effectiveness steps that sit in the wider training process. Treat this chart as the funding and authorisation control, not as competence evidence.