It’s really important that when you are looking at training for your company, whether it be technical, CPD or management training that you take a moment to think about your programme.
A programme can be produced using Instructor Led Training (ILT), online resources or any number of different methods used individually or in combination.
Before you start
So as Simon Sinek says – start with why!
Why are you thinking about workforce training?
What do you want to change as a result?
You’re better off doing a number of smaller programmes that are tightly focused rather than one. massive and unfocused one.
So for example you may have a CPD programme, A compliance programme (GDPR etc.), A management training one or a cost saving training programme.
Understanding exactly what you want to get out of it before you start makes it much more likely that you’ll have a good outcome.
Work out the resources at your disposal
Yes this means money but much more than this.
So for example are you confident that you could gather together all the senior managers to do a three day strategy course? Would you be better offering half day workshops?
Do you have facilities in-house to do this or do you need external help?
Will you have to hire a meeting room or can you do it at work?
Answering these questions guide you towards the sort of provider you need to engage.
Getting resources in
So you know what your outcome is and you know you have a budget and facilities and that you can get people together – now to find a delivery partner.
Look for specialists in the field. Very often training companies (especially the bigger ones) tend to be a bit sausage factory like.
I’d suggest speaking with 3 and asking a few salient questions.
What they do, How they deliver it, What backup they give.
Do they seem like the sort of people who can deliver but have a similar mindset to your business?
Once you are happy then contract them to deliver the parts of the programme you want them to do.
Don’t worry about asking specialists to do different parts of the programme, most decent training companies will provide what they know about and be happy to coordinate their work with other good providers.
Running the programme
Number 1, and this is based in your work right at the start, decide how you are going to measure the effectiveness of the training.
In an ideal world there will be specific and measurable differences in your business after the training but for some things, like management training you may have to go on feedback from the attendees and from their managers.
You can always work with your provider to identify suitable metrics for this.
Make sure you have planned out the sessions on a calendar and publicise in good time. Send out calendar invitations so that people have it in their diaries.
Check with your provider to see if there is any pre-work that needs to be completed and make sure it gets done.
Send out reminders a week before the event and the day before to make sure people have no excuse!
After the training
Make sure you get feedback. Both on the day from the staff but also form the trainer.
How did the day go? Any problems? Set up good?
Once a suitable amount of time has elapsed then you’ll need to track your metrics and see if the training has been effective.
After all the results are in you can use this as a basis to tweak (or completely revise) your programme for future use.