If you cannot explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it. The best way to learn is to teach. - Richard Feynman
The final piece in EkaLore’s series – Enough is Enough considers local training costs. While external training may provide a level of quality unavailable in many organizations, local processes are not documented outside the organization; therefore, training must be created and delivered internally.
A key benefit to local training (even if informal) is people who do it frequently act to define, document, and refine the actual business process being worked on. A person being trained is likely to ask questions, seek clarity, and fit the work effort into the larger process. Good trainers need the time to refine the training materials (and business process documentation) resulting from conducting training.
The cost of local training (done closest to the job tasks without external help) has to include the development of the training materials and training the trainer. A basic rule of thumb is that a trainer will spend at least 4-5 times as long creating the material as delivering the training. Documenting the business process and refining the training before it’s given again is even more time expended. Balanced against this is the likely gains from having documentation and being able to repeat the training.
Often local training materials are the only (though best) documentation of how local processes even work. Finance/accounting has long had standards and practices to meet for documenting process (such as internal audit, external audit, and government oversight/regulation). Other specific business areas have other standards driving process and documentation (ISO quality standards, GMP, standards of practice/care). Local training materials can also include conformance with enterprise rules, deviations from industry norms (good and bad), and local customs (notifications, collaboration, tracking). Local training materials take longer to develop because they take in the actual local task performance process operations.
Taking in external training materials, combining lessons with material reused from the Internet, and then creating a ‘library of what works’ is a time consuming process. The same caveats for developing training go for being a good teacher – rarely do good training developers come from people who are heads-down on their tasks. Good training developers are also people who understand the business process or function very well. Those aren’t necessarily the people who can actually do the business process operations or functions at a high performance level. The needed people (interpersonal), technical (know-how), or domain knowledge skills to be a good training developer are distinct from those of a good ‘doer’ or trainer.
If you’d like to start reading this series from the beginning, you can find the first article here. Or take a look at our blog posts on the topic at www.ekalore.com/hunt-for-talent
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