Training must meet needs
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Training programmes should be tailored to the needs of your staff, your corporate culture and the function and tasks that are involved. Your training provider should have experienced personnel. Talk to recent clients and find out what they did and didn't like about the provider. Find out how the client could have got more from the programme.
It is important to understand the training company. Do theydo off-the- shelf or bespoke work? Do they focus on the latest fad or out-of-date and inappropriate tools?
Most training firms have a systematic approach to addressing client needs. Training companies that I have been involved with follow a five-step pattern similar to the one outlined below:
Step One: analysis - Discussion about current issues, strengths and weaknesses enable the training provider to build up a picture and start to set some priorities or key objectives.
Step Two: indicative proposal - This gives you an indication of the recommended shape, design, course content and costs of further programme development. It also shows how the provider wishes to progress.
Step Three: programme design - Details can now be agreed, probably including a fuller training needs analysis. This will identify the gap between how things are and how you would like them to be, between how the organisation is performing and how it should be performing and between what people know and can do and what they should know and should be able to do. The provider can ensure that the programme will fit your company culture.
Step Four: programme delivery - Who will do the actual delivery? You need to see them, as these are the people who will interact with your delegates. Where, when, and how will the programme be introduced to the delegates? How will delegates be chosen? Remember to tell them why you are putting them through the process.
Step Five: evaluation - Level One evaluations are fine but do not tell you about the impact on the bottom line. Finance directors will not continue to allow training budgets unless performance can be demonstrated. Evaluation must reflect the original objectives of the programme and there must be a feedback mechanism so that your organisation hears how it could have managed the whole process more effectively.
The author is managing director of management consultancy and training company The Directors' Centre and an associate fellow at Warwick Business School.
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