Why has your company decided to outsource training?
To keep within your training budget, you made the decision that you would run group training across different departments. To ensure the group training was beneficial, you created a training needs analysis (TNA) for each staff member.
This allowed you to then enrol the right staff members into the right group training to maximise on the limited time and budget you had.
But you have consumed so much of your training budget only in the preparation of the training, let alone the actual training and follow ups.
When the training is finally scheduled, you still need to plan and coordinate in the lead up to the session. That includes booking all the flights and accommodation for staff working in different locations, plus many other administrative tasks.
As you get closer to the training day, you start receiving cancellations. Your staff are in demanding roles where a lot of the time work tasks take priority over training. You are not surprised by the cancellations, yet, you are still aware of the lost time and budget.
The plan to make training cost effective, has now been a huge cost that is not recoverable. Flights, training fees and coordination costs are non-refundable.
In light of this situation continually re-occuring, your company has made the decision to subscribe to Training as a Service (TaaS) to decrease the cost of in-house training.
You agree that this makes sense for the company but you are concerned about the impact this will have on the quality of training and development you provide your staff. The training is designed and delivered in-house because you are so familiar with your staff needs. How can TaaS meet the same quality standards as you and your team? A very valid concern.
Here are 3 simple steps you can implement to preserve quality training and development
Consider TaaS as an extension of the training & development (T&D) team. They are not replacing the entire T&D processes; they are alleviating the company of the high costs associated with delivering in-house training.
You and TaaS must work together collaboratively to preserve the quality of the development opportunities you provide your staff.
Continue reading to learn how.
Step 1: Develop and Conduct a Gap Analysis
All the time and effort you have already put into the TNAs has not gone to waste!
Before you can enrol your staff into the appropriate training sessions, you need to identify what their training needs are. This is why it is extremely important to conduct an analysis of your staff's current abilities against what they are required to have to effectively perform their role.
However, rather than investing time and money into creating a customised TNA for each staff member that will result in creating specialised training, conduct a gap analysis instead.
In this first step your focus is to organise the staff development, what do your staff need to learn right now to be better tomorrow?
Start by identifying the list of knowledge, skills and abilities required for each role in the company. You can find this list of requirements from already existing job descriptions. At this stage, you are not writing a list per employee, you are writing per role. You may have multiple staff that have the same job description. Write the list as per these roles. Secondly, map the list of requirements against the training that is provided by TaaS. This is best completed in a matrix style analysis.
To create the matrix, along top row, write the training sessions provided by TaaS. You may want to group these into similar categories.
Next, down the first column, list the requirements. You may want to group these by department or role.
Now you can clearly map by marking an X where the requirements can be attained from a specific training session.
Once you have the matrix of what is required for each role, you need to conduct a gap analysis to identify what requirements your staff need to attain. You can complete this gap analysis through conducting observations, speaking to managers or reviewing performance reviews.
This analysis is comparing what skills staff members need to have for their roles and what skills they currently employ.
Your gap analysis helps you to determine the training needs of your staff so that you can schedule the right training sessions with TaaS.
Now, all you need to do is confirm which staff members will be enrolled into which training sessions. TaaS will focus on delivering quality training.
Step 2: Enrol Staff into Available Training
Now that you have the conducted a gap analysis, the next step is to enrol you staff into the available training sessions.
First, identify the schedule of training available through TaaS for at least the upcoming quarter.
TaaS provides frequent training sessions monthly that are part of the courses they have been delivering for more than 20 years. Whether this is online live sessions, face to face sessions or online eLearning, the training will go ahead. There are no risks of training being cancelled at the last minute.
To determine which staff members require to be enrolled in the above training, refer back to your gap analysis. You can enrol staff from different departments into the same training sessions. Another great benefit of TaaS is that you can share the subscription across different departments.
Once you have determined who needs to be enrolled in which upcoming sessions, enrol your staff and coordinate requirements such as flights and accommodation. This will support your staff to prioritise training in their busy work schedule.
Step 3: Conduct Performance Reviews
Remember, a subscription to TaaS is relieving you of the costs of training while allowing you to focus on the development of your staff. This is the perfect collaboration between two parties providing a seamless training and development experience.
You have conducted the gap analysis and developed a training plan of who needs to complete which training sessions, now you need to conduct your post development analysis.
- Was each training session covering the expected skill sets, or do you need to revise your gap analysis?
- Did the staff get the skills they required, or do they need further training?
- What tasks can you provide your staff to continually develop their skills in practical, on-the-job work?
- Is the above in accordance with your staff's performance plans?
- How can you further support your staff to develop their skills?
Be careful, this is not a review of the training sessions itself, but a review of how your staff members are developing their skills within their roles.
This is where you will create a performance review alongside managers that covers their current skills and what they are developing. This is an opportunity to reflect on their past and plan for their future.
Where should they be in 6 months' time and how are they going to get there with your support?
Wrap Up
Your company and TaaS have one goal in mind, provide quality training and development. Outsouring the training delivery to TaaS does not mean it will jeopardise the quality of development opportunities you provide your staff.
This needs to be a collaborative effort. You focus on what skills your staff need to develop and review their performance, while TaaS focuses on the training delivery of these required skills.
Take a look at how TaaS can support your Training and Development team here.