TRAINING  Responsibilities 

 Who’s in charge of training in your organisation?

         Top management is responsible for the day-to-day running of an organisation and for its long-term planning and development. They should also be responsible for an active training policy. This is not a role to be delegated to others.

         Managers and leaders should be involved in planning training. Without their full support, encouragement and follow-up, expensive training can be wasted.

         Having run training programmes in many countries I found when top managers and directors showed an interest in training programmes trainees were encouraged to make a greater effort to perform.

A handful of tips to improve training  

*  Training should support the organisation’s long-term objectives and goals

         There must be an active long-term training policy fully supported and encouraged by top management. People leaders are responsible for training policies, budgets and economic effectiveness of all programmes.  

*  There must be an adequate training budget

         Training must be considered a budgeted item like travel and sales.

         Suitable locations and resources for training must be made available.

         Top management should turn up frequently to encourage and be seen at training sessions.

* Sufficient time must be allocated during working hours for the required training to be carried out

         Training must be a special event and made enjoyable.

* Skilled people should carry out training

         Large organisations should employ professionally trained trainers. They should be in constant liaison with top management.

         Respected experienced leaders should also be trained in the art of training.

* Training needs to be constantly evaluated 

         Training needs to be economically effective.

         Time spent at training sessions means loss of work time. Therefore all training activities should be worthwhile and benefit the employee and the organisation.

         Training should include creative and lateral thinking linked to team building and real business situations.

         Today business is all about performance, productivity and accountability and trainers must be held to account.

-Geoffrey Moss (mossassociates.co.nz)

“Successful senior managers should accept full responsibility for training future people leaders. Without this commitment, the training is unlikely to receive the priority it deserves.”

 SOURCE: “Training Secrets. Helping adults learn” 190p., Moss Associates. Ltd, New Zealand and Cengage Learning Asia, Singapore. Also available as an e-book from Amazon.com.   Learn 49 different ways to train and how to assess and improve your own training skills. Learn how good a trainer you are.