Grow Your Own Trainers

• Do you spend a lot of money on external training?
• Would you like to make more of your training budget?
• Are there people in your organisation who have the potential to become in house trainers?

Most organisations these days have to think carefully about what they spend their money on. Training can be often be expensive, but few would agree that their businesses would survive if they did not do something to ensure that their employees continued to develop their knowledge and skills and help the organisation grow.

It’s a myth that anyone can train as long as they know enough about their subject, because training is not just about understanding an idea or being able to do something – the ability to help others learn how to do it is equally important – if not more so. Being able to train others requires a set of skills, behaviours and attitudes, known as training competencies.

The good news is that many of your existing employees probably already have some of these competencies, for example: planning, creativity, presentation skills and so on. The even better news is that other training competencies can be easily developed, so anyone who has the inclination and motivation to become an effective trainer has the potential to do so.

5 reasons for growing your own trainers

1. Bespoke training at your fingertips

If you were to survey all the companies in the FTSE 100, you would find that the overwhelming majority employ in-house trainers to develop, design and deliver training to employees. You might argue that FTSE 100 companies have the financial resources to be able to do this, but if it were simply a case of having money to spend, why would they not simply outsource all their training to specialist training providers? The answer is that these companies value the fact that trainers who are employed by the company have a good understanding of the organisation and its strategic and operational issues as well as being experienced and knowledgeable about their own specialist fields. This means that they can develop bespoke, company-specific training which is relevant and meaningful to learners and which can be more effective than buying an off-the-shelf training product from an external provider.

2. Training when and where you want it

One of the limitations of outsourcing training is that there may not be a course running when or where you need it or the prescribed approach may not be what you are looking for. For example, you may need to provide all your staff with training on a new database system, but it would be impractical to have everyone trained at the same time. By having in-house trainers, short regular sessions can be scheduled for employees to sign up to at times which are convenient for them and which mean minimal disruption to their work.

3. In-house training will save you money

Anyone who has ever read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, will know that small things can make a big difference! By making a modest investment to develop in-house trainers, your organisation could save literally hundreds of thousands of pounds. If your current annual spend on training is around £20000, and three quarters of this could be saved by having your existing employees deliver training to colleagues, over the next ten years, you will have spent £150000 less on training.

4. Increase motivation among employees

One of the biggest reasons why people leave the companies they work for is lack of opportunities for promotion or development. It is tempting to believe that employees can be encouraged to stay through financial reward but this is both expensive and largely ineffective since the effects of such rewards are generally short-lived. Retention strategies which capitalise on motivating employees intrinsically have much higher success rates. Providing employees with variety in their work, giving them additional responsibility, and letting them know the value they are adding to the organisation is far more motivating. By identifying employees with the potential to train and giving them the opportunity to develop professional training skills, you could go a long way to keeping them motivated and engaged in their work. this will also have a knock-on effect as other employees begin to see that the

5. Yours will become a “learning organisation”

The term learning organisation was coined by Peter Senge in the 1990s and is concerned with the ability of an organisation to adapt and evolve to respond to continual change in their environments. Learning organisations are ones in which everyone in the organisation are constantly learning and are encouraged to do so, and where people work collaboratively and share what they know. In this way, the organisation itself can transform and grow. By providing your employees with the resources to do this, you can be pro-actively helping your business both to perform more effectively and outsmart the competition.

How to grow your own trainers

1. Sow the seeds: Establish whether you have a potential need for in-house trainers and identify potential in-house trainers.

2. Nurture your seedlings: Develop your in-house trainers by giving them the opportunity to learn how to train effectively.

3. Water regularly: Provide support and resources for in-house trainers and regular opportunities for them to facilitate learning among colleagues, as well as develop further and learn new techniques.

4. Reap the benefits!

Sound good? To find out more about growing your own in-house trainers, contact J-Cubed Consulting Ltd.