Four Reasons to Keep your Staff Training In-house
You have young leaders to train and develop. The need is obvious, budgets are tight and there is urgency.
According to an annual industry report, companies invested 50 hours of training and nearly $1,000 per employee on average in 2018 (Training Magazine). The question is where you should be making that investment.
There’s a generation of Boomers just waiting to pass the torch. It’s important to have a training plan in place that includes preparing your up and coming super stars. Even more important to have the right plan in place.
In this article, I am sharing some pros and cons of outsourcing your training as a part of your business succession plan.
In my professional practice, working with large-scale training solutions, I often see outsourcing training being used as an easy solution. After all, you’re a busy professional and turn-key solutions can be an attractive way to move training needs off your list.
Hiring an outside provider could be:
cost-effective,
convenient, and
a timesaver
On the other hand…
There are some long-term benefits to keeping things under your roof.
Four reasons to keep your training in-house:
Customize to your values: Ideally, your training curriculum should support your corporate mission, vision and values and, of course, your staff succession plan. Is your company focused on sales, customer retention, or recruitment? Where do you want your team to place their focus? And how should they navigate your organizational chart? In addition, your training and development models (like: leadership, customer service, project management) should be aligned with the best practices already being used.
Customize to your industry: “One size” rarely fits all. For example, a team leader in a hydro-electric plant will be following a different set of procedures and protocols than a leader in a large accounting firm. Will the training scenarios match your business model? They will if you’re part of the design.
Avoid a disconnect back at the office: Great, you sent your new employee to a conference for an inspiring day of leadership training. They came back with a head full of great ideas...now they’re chafing against “the old” because they’ve spent a day learning about “the new”. There will always be limitations with group learning at public seminars or contracted external training companies.
Get your team working like a team: Give your long-time employees the opportunity to break down departmental silos and create a culture of collaboration. We know that staff who feel they have “skin in the game” are more engaged. Get your senior leaders involved in training and development for the junior leaders and create a win/win solution of knowledge transfer and senior management engagement.
Leadership training, as a part of your corporate succession planning is vital for the ongoing success of your company - both for your rising stars and your longer term team members.
If the training you provide as a part of your staff succession planning doesn’t reflect your company’s culture or internal learning models it’s not helping you build and integrate new leaders. A well-designed succession plan will help your outgoing leaders pass the torch to upcoming leaders who are prepared to run the next leg of the race.
Cost/Benefit Analysis
At some point in my work with corporate leaders, we have to address the realities of higher costs for in-house training solutions. But, that’s only the hard costs. The soft costs include lost productivity from employees sent to “feel good” training sessions that are so generic and lacking any follow-up that there is zero benefit to the company.
Soft costs also include the disconnect an employee feels when the latest leadership author teaches “best practices” that don’t align with established practices at your company.
The only way to accurately assess the costs and benefits of internal, versus outsourced training is to clearly establish your goals. And sometimes, the quickest, cheapest solution is not the winner overall or long-term.
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