By Hannah Keep – Expert Recruitment Trainer In a recent article entitled ‘Lack of training is suppressing the industry’ by James Caan it states that ‘there is a huge void when it comes to training and development, there is no gold standard when it comes to training and products are out dated and expensive.’
Having worked in the Recruitment training industry for almost 14 years I am glad to say that it is now quite rare for no training to be provided whether that be a formal course, qualification or on the desk coaching from a manager.
For me the main problem is not lack of training or out of date products, it is the lack of follow up and evaluation that comes after a training intervention and this I am afraid falls on manager’s heads. Too often managers can rely on their training function or an external training provider to train their people, thinking too soon that the job is done and rookies should be ready to bill.
For any course or product to be successful, yes I agree with James, the content has to be at a good standard but that content has little value without it being evaluated and reinforced by a manager back at the desks. The most important steps of training and development are – evaluate and reinforce.
Training that relies on feedback sheets or quizzes for evaluation is just not good enough.
In the first 3-6 months of on-boarding, a manager’s role (not the trainer’s role) is to make sure their new employee is demonstrating the skills, aptitude and attitude they would expect them to at this stage of their learning journey. To do this effectively the manager needs to do 5 key things:
- Evaluate training content has been retained – are they applying it?
- Reinforce the knowledge
- Assess performance against basic KPI’s/performance measures
- Identify knowledge strengths and gaps
- Implement further training/desk activities to close the gaps
And this is where the real problem lies. Managers having the time to do the above 5 activities consistently while still billing themselves. Training on it’s own has little value, continued development is the activity that creates the real return.
If companies want to stand out in 2016 like James says, then they should start with being honest about how seriously they take training and development. Are you training your people to tick a box or are you prepared to take the time to evaluate, reinforce and ensure the training you provide achieves return on investment?
My clients don’t struggle to bill £10k a month, they train, but most importantly they continuously develop.
By Hannah Keep – Expert Recruitment Trainer – started her recruitment career in 1997 working for the S3 group as a permanent and contract consultant, working her way up to Regional Manager. She now heads up the IOR’s Training Academy while running a very successful training consultancy boasting a client base of some of the most respected and high performing agencies in the industry. View Hannah’s expert training here.
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