Why Hire a Professional Trainer?
We all know trainers can be expensive, but are they worth it? For the first eight years of my career, every training session I attended was taught by a co-worker. Sometimes it was a HR rep, sometimes it was a subject matter expert, but it always seemed a little stilted. It seemed like the first ten minutes of every training session were dedicated to that co-worker awkwardly shifting out of employee mode and into trainer mode.
You too have qualified employees capable of running training sessions and since they’re already being paid to be there, there’s no extra cost, right? It seems obvious to use existing resources for this type of work, but is it really the best idea?
Meetings and training sessions are expensive, no matter who runs them. Employees are called away from their daily responsibilities and meeting rooms are occupied for days. There is set up time to get the room prepared and design time to build the slide decks used during training.
These employees are usually not professional trainers and they often don’t have the necessary public speaking or instructional design skills to build engaging and memorable content.
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What are the advantages of an external trainer?
Subject Matter Experts – external trainers usually have specialized knowledge in the material to be covered and that means they tend to have a deeper understanding. This helps with answering probing and insightful questions from your team to help enable them to use the tool more effectively.
Training training – professional trainers are typically trained in public speaking, instructional design, and the hard and soft skills needed to execute a training session. Arguably the most important of these being crowd control. Trainers understand how interpersonal relationships can impact learning and how to make sure that strong personalities do not derail or hinder a session.
No personal drama – given that an external trainer is…external, they provide your staff a uniform point of information with no previous personal bias. Internal trainers opens the training session up to personal bias, preferential treatment, and potential communication difficulties if there are negative relationships in the mix.
What are the disadvantages of an external trainer?
Outsider Effect – external trainers don’t know your company like your employees do and may not have a correct understanding of the day-to-day that will enable them to customize a training session to your business and its people.
Rapport takes time – advantageous as a new face can be, it can also slow down the initial pacing of the training during the icebreaking and getting-to-know-you phase. Whether there is a formal introduction period designed into the training or not, there is always a grace period in the initial 5% or so of training time where the instructor must learn about the learners on the fly. Who will interrupt, who is the know-it-all, which employees have tension in their relationship, etc.
What to expect with a professional trainer
You’ve decided to hire a professional trainer. What should you expect? If you’ve chosen well, then your trainer should have a discovery call with you to identify your training needs. Be prepared to answer a slew of questions about learning outcomes, timing, cost, inclusions, software, hard skills, soft skills, learner profiles, and follow-up strategies. All of this information allows your trainer to design a course to satisfy your needs and investing this time with them now will reduce pain later.
Training is more than death by PowerPoint. Training is about achieving an outcome to enable your employees to accomplish more in their day-to-day by providing them with a toolkit. Whether it is a software package, a new process, an old process, or the specific way you want your employees to approach problems, you expect them to have learned something by the end of the training.
Professional trainers are specialists who work with you to develop training that will satisfy your requirements. Expect to have several conversations during the design phase. Your trainer is working hard to make sure that all of your learning outcomes are accounted for. The effort that is put in to the training on the front end will show in the finished product.
Have we got you convinced? Give us a call to learn more about how we can help you design your next training session.