Training The Trainer: You Or A Company?

Training a trainer usually takes place within your own company, and for good reason. After all, you know the ropes, you know what training needs are required, and you know how you'd like the training courses delivered.

However, most people don't even consider employing an outside training company when it comes to training the trainer, because doing it 'in house' is the way it's always been. This needn't be the case.

Here are five reasons why you may want to consider getting a training company in on the job.

1. Expense - and not just hard cash

Very often, people consider training the trainer themselves to be the cheapest option. After all, you're training them for free - or so you think. If you have one or two members of staff tied up for a couple of days in order to train someone, then you're losing man-hours in the company, and that can cost a lot in lost labour for the day.

Then there's tying up a conference room or other venue for the time it takes to train, too - and that could mean that other parts of the business suffer. Then there's training materials. If you're copying all the paperwork you think the new trainee might need, rather than examining what is really required, you're also wasting money on stationery too.

2. Having a third party critique your training is good

If the training within your business is a matter of 'doing it because it's always been done that way', you may be oblivious to problems or gaps in your training course. Very often, training is done in a rush in order to get the new trainer up and running as soon as possible, and very little time is spent on seeing if the training material is still useful or even relevant to what's required. If you get the chance to run your training materials and goals past a professional training company, they can improve your training by casting a fresh eye over it for you.

3. Follow-ups are at the tip of your fingers

Training people yourself means that there is usually a panic to schedule it, find a room, gather the training materials, and finding staff with enough time out of their normal workload in order to get the training done. Once you've brought in an external company, it's far easier to just say 'please do exactly as you did before'. You can get a repeat of the training at short notice and at your convenience, and because they will have dealt with you before, it can take much less time.

4. Send the trainee to be trained, and then relax

This is an obvious but much ignored advantage of having an external training provider train your trainers. You can send them on a course, then get on with the work in hand within the business. They are not taking up time, resources or your energy, resulting in less stress in the workplace.

5. You can continue your working relationship

If you're happy with how a training company performs, then you can ask them to do other things for you on top of training the trainers, and you could also train more than one person at a time. Although the initial expense is always the thing people consider, all the above advantages will save money, rather than spend it in the long run, so if you think your business could benefit from a training provider, it may be time to consider making that move.