Nine key questions for corporate internal trainers
Internal trainers are not only familiar with the corporate culture, but can also contact the company to actually impart knowledge and skills to achieve targeted training results. Moreover, having an excellent team of internal trainers is more conducive to promoting internal communication within the company, promoting corporate culture construction and knowledge management. Therefore, more and more companies will form a team of internal trainers as an important part of the corporate training system. However, the construction of internal trainer teams in many companies has not achieved the expected results. The reason lies in the failure to effectively solve the following key issues.
1. Is it necessary to establish a team of internal trainers?
Not all industries and all enterprises need to establish a team of internal trainers. Small enterprises, especially those with high versatility, No or only a small number of in-house trainers are needed. And if the enterprise is large in scale, has many branches, has high standardization requirements, and has obvious industry characteristics, it is necessary to establish a team of internal trainers. From the perspective of development stage, companies in the startup and growth stages have relatively low demand for internal trainers, while companies in the mature stage have higher demand. It can be said that the importance of internal trainers is directly proportional to the uniqueness of the training content. The more specific and special the training content required by the company, the more irreplaceable the role of internal trainers.
2. What qualities do internal trainers need to possess?
An excellent internal trainer must highly identify with the corporate culture, have good communication skills, a strong willingness to share, and solid professionalism Knowledge, strong practical skills and extensive relevant work experience. In addition, you need to have strong learning ability, knowledge presentation and sharing skills, including how to design courses, how to make courseware, how to teach, etc., all of which require training by a specialized trainer (Training The Trainer, referred to as TTT) to cultivate and improve. Therefore, a strict internal trainer certification training process must be established. At the same time, in order to ensure the teaching quality of internal trainers, the construction of the internal trainer team must also focus on the curriculum system, and each course must be certified before it can be officially taught. In this sense, internal trainers should be called certified instructors of a certain course.
In practice, some large enterprises use internal technology competitions and other opportunities to directly recruit outstanding employees with outstanding performance as internal trainers. The author believes that this approach is biased because it only focuses on business skills but ignores the examination of other qualities. In addition, it does not provide corresponding training on trainer skills. The result not only affects the training effect, but also reduces the internal trainer's ability to Enthusiasm for training work. Another problem that is often encountered is that some employees are outstanding in business and have excellent professional skills, but they cannot effectively transfer these knowledge and skills to others, or do not know what to say, or are not good at expressing, or even It is also difficult to change through TTT training. In response to this situation, you can find an internal trainer who is engaged in similar work, has good communication skills, and is good at expressing, and work with him to develop and teach courses, fully tap his experience and skills, and achieve effective presentation and sharing of tacit knowledge; another The method is to refine the training needs as much as possible into very specific knowledge or skill points, and let them know what content should be taught.
3. How many internal trainers are needed?
The number of internal trainers required should be determined based on the actual needs of the training courses and training workload. In actual operation, the positions can be classified into different levels. It is determined based on the development needs of the enterprise and the actual skill shortage situation to take care of different departments and different positions. Moreover, each course must be equipped with several certified instructors at the same time, and have a chief instructor to develop the course in the form of a course group, which not only makes full use of collective wisdom to ensure course quality, but also increases the flexibility of internal trainer selection when arranging courses. . Of course, the number of people also needs to consider the need for echelon construction of trainers.
In general, the size of an enterprise is an important factor affecting the number of internal trainers. In addition, the perfection of the enterprise's training system also has an impact on the number of internal trainers. According to the "China Enterprise Training Report" survey, the larger the enterprise, the more complete the training system, and the average number of internal trainers.
Middle and senior managers are the first backup choices for internal trainers.
First of all, middle and senior managers serve as internal trainers. Through teaching on stage and teaching by words and deeds, they can convey corporate culture and values ??and create a learning culture of active sharing. This is not only an important basic work for establishing a team of internal trainers, but also an important step in establishing a training system. Important content. Secondly, middle and senior managers are the backbone of the enterprise. They have rich practical experience and have a good understanding of industry development and the overall situation of the enterprise. They can combine management practices to convey effective and highly operational experience to employees, so that tacit knowledge can be revealed. Personalization and effective transfer within the enterprise. In particular, senior managers, by engaging in internal training, can not only promote the company's strategic goals and business philosophy, but also have close contact with employees, listen to the voices of front-line employees, and better understand the actual situation of the company. Thirdly, coaching subordinates to grow is an important responsibility of managers, and teaching on stage is an important way to train subordinates. At the same time, middle and senior managers, especially the boss, personally serve as internal trainers, which is conducive to setting a good behavioral example, helping to cultivate, supervise and motivate other internal trainers, and better support the construction of a team of internal trainers.
During Jack Welch’s 21 years as leader of General Electric Company (GE), he worked with nearly 18,000 students at the GE Crotonville School of Management, which was regarded as a model for internal corporate universities. Managers communicated directly. In a sense, Welch relied on such training to communicate with company managers around the world, understand their work and market information, and convey his goals and ideas. This is a management tool of GE. About 85% of the teachers at the Crotonville School of Management are GE's top managers. Welch believes that if used well, the students teach me as much as I teach them, and I become a booster, helping everyone learn from each other's strengths. ?
Another important source of internal trainers is outstanding employees at the grassroots level, including business backbones, technical experts and operational experts from various departments. According to a questionnaire survey on the selection of internal trainers, about half of the companies surveyed tend to choose junior employees who are engaged in related work internally and have excellent performance to serve as internal trainers. The reason is that outstanding employees are very proficient in job skills and operating procedures, have a positive work attitude, and have a strong sense of responsibility. They can serve as good role models and demonstrations, and can give thorough explanations based on actual work problems, thereby improving the training effect. For outstanding employees themselves, engaging in training can not only comprehensively improve their abilities, but is also an effective way to improve their personal careers and advance to high-level positions. In actual operation, employees with excellent daily performance can be selected strictly according to the internal trainer selection standards and procedures, and those who have initially qualified can be given TTT training, and combined with their actual work fields, they can be recruited on the basis of strict certification. trainer.
5. How to encourage middle and senior managers to serve as internal trainers?
Judging from corporate practice, middle and senior managers are often very busy with work, and even have no time or due to various other reasons. The reluctance to teach on stage is particularly evident in state-owned enterprises. To this end, it can be stipulated that middle and senior managers must serve as internal trainers, and teach subordinates and other colleagues as one of the managers' job responsibilities. At the same time, their training work can be included in the scope of performance appraisal, and they can also serve as internal trainers. As a prerequisite for job promotion, it is institutionally guaranteed that middle and senior managers must serve as internal trainers. Of course, specific training time arrangements need to be included in the annual training plan so that middle and senior managers can make work arrangements in advance.
In P&G, every manager must be an internal trainer, otherwise it will affect his or her development in the company. P&G's internal lecturers are not paid, but the registration and selection of internal trainers is extremely popular. One important reason is that in P&G's performance appraisal, 50% of the scores come from organizational contribution evaluation such as training. Being a lecturer is undoubtedly important. Bonus factor, and even for employees who want to change jobs, mastering a P&G course can be beneficial to their personal development.
6. How to use internal trainers?
From the perspective of usage, most companies use a combination of internal trainers and external trainers, that is, internal training is mainly used. External training as a supplement? Special knowledge and special operating skills that are closely related to the characteristics of the enterprise are suitable for internal training, such as the "speaking skills" training for insurance company salesmen. Since the professional industry is relatively strong, internal training is generally used.
External training is suitable for cutting-edge theories, process transformation, and personal general skills and intellectual development. In addition, for some good external training courses, internal lecturers can also be sent to participate in the learning, and after the course certification process, they can be successfully converted into internal courses, which can not only reduce the training cost, but also achieve the purpose of training and learning.
According to Procter & Gamble’s experience, knowledge management must also comply with the “20/80 Principle”. 20% of knowledge is obtained through external learning from external lecturers and internal trainers, and 80% of knowledge comes from within the organization. Such a knowledge structure can fully ensure the timely updating of knowledge and practical effects. Too much external training will affect the construction of the company's internal knowledge system, and too little may be too closed; 80% of knowledge should come from the internal knowledge system. Only when this knowledge is continuously disseminated, practiced and updated within the organization can the organization be formed. True core competitiveness.
From the perspective of the application scope of internal trainers, the main consideration is the job level. The more junior employees are, the more they should adopt internal training, and the more senior leaders are, the more they should adopt external training. From the perspective of training practices, some companies mainly focus on business knowledge and professional skills of grassroots employees and new employees, while some companies cover a wider range of topics, including internal seminars for middle and senior managers, corporate culture construction training for all employees, etc.
In general, according to the aforementioned "Chinese Enterprise Training Report", the proportion of Chinese enterprises actually choosing internal trainers for training is relatively low. Even if actual executives are included, the number is only 42%, which is still far behind the 80% ratio. This also shows that there is a long way to go to build a team of internal trainers.
7. How to deal with the relationship between the internal trainer’s job and the training work?
Generally speaking, training is only a part-time job of the internal trainer, and the relationship between the internal trainer’s job and his job can be separated as follows: Principles of management and dual management:
1) The job is managed by the department where it is located, and the training management department does not need to interfere. Possible time conflicts between the two should be avoided by formulating training plans in advance.
2) The training management department should provide timely and frequent appropriate guidance and supervision for the training work it is responsible for, and be responsible for coordinating with its department to ensure the smooth progress of the training.
3) In terms of curriculum development and specific training implementation, the training management department should try to ensure the relative independence of the trainers to ensure that the curriculum meets the actual situation, and provide support and assistance when necessary.
4) The evaluation of training effectiveness is personally performed by the training management department. Specific methods include: review of trial lectures, topics, courseware, etc.; regular spot checks; satisfaction surveys; annual assessments, etc. As for the evaluation content, you can refer to Table 4, and different weights can be set for each project.
8. How to improve the career development of internal trainers?
First of all, corresponding career development channels can be designed for internal trainers. Divide internal trainers into several levels from high to low, such as Level 4, Level 3, Level 2 and Level 1 trainers. Each level stipulates corresponding qualification standards, and combines the grading system of internal trainers to complete internal training. The promotion, promotion and elimination of teachers will, to a certain extent, encourage them to continuously improve their training skills and strive to become higher-level instructors.
Secondly, provide internal trainers with priority in providing various training opportunities, which not only improves the internal trainers’ own value, but also enables them to better transfer and share knowledge, experience and skills; when selecting talents or promoting employees , giving priority to internal trainers with outstanding performance, etc. Third, strengthen the tracking and coaching of on-site teaching skills. Every time a class is taught, other members of the course group must attend the class if work permits, and evaluate the training effect on the spot after the class is over, and provide professional feedback on training skills and techniques. The training management department also makes suggestions for improvements based on on-site evaluations of trainees. Of course, professional training and guidance consultants can also be equipped as needed to provide regular on-site guidance. In addition, in order to broaden the career development space of internal trainers, they can also be supported to obtain national and even internationally recognized corporate trainer qualification certificates.
Taking the CITIC Bank Credit Card Center as an example, in order to promote the career development of internal trainers, on the one hand, a communication and exchange platform is created for internal trainers.
Organize a "Lecturer QQ Forum" online to allow lecturers from all over the country to interact and communicate online, freely share their teaching experience, and upload personally developed PPT courseware and training cases. Respondents will respond one after another and put forward their own opinions and insights to form an interactive A shared learning atmosphere and a lecturer club were established to provide internal trainers with a broader learning space and strengthen the cohesion of the internal trainer team. On the other hand, internal trainers are encouraged to continue learning and broaden their horizons. Internal trainers can apply to the training center to purchase corresponding books based on course needs. At the same time, internal trainers are actively organized to visit corporate universities such as Huawei University, Tencent University, and Ping An University, and have conversations with senior managers. In addition, the center also stipulates that departments must give priority to internal lecturers in employee evaluation and promotion. Since the top leaders of each department are specially appointed lecturers officially appointed by the center and have the function of training and supervising business lecturers, it is easy to win their support.
9. How to improve the enthusiasm of internal trainers?
Internal trainers are basically business and management backbones and have extremely rich business, management and professional experience, which are worthy of Precipitate, solidify and share it within the enterprise to achieve low-cost replication of knowledge, skills and experience. However, due to their busy daily work, they need to use their spare time to develop and even teach courses, which even affects the smooth completion of their own jobs. Therefore, how to motivate them to actively engage in internal training work is a focus of internal trainer management.
On the one hand, it is necessary to refer to the remuneration market of external trainers and combine it with the actual salary level of the company, set different class hour allowance standards according to the different levels of internal trainers, and set the course assessment coefficient to reflect differences in training effectiveness. Of course, you also need to consider whether the class is taught during working hours or at other times. The class allowance should be different between the two.
For example, a company’s internal trainer management regulations stipulate that class fees are set according to the internal trainer’s level: there is no teaching fee for intern trainers, 30 yuan per hour for junior trainers, and 50 yuan per hour for intermediate trainers. Senior trainers earn 80 yuan per hour and will be cashed out based on the evaluation results of each course. If the student is evaluated as excellent, the student will be multiplied by the 1.1 coefficient; if the student is evaluated as good, the student will be multiplied by the 1.0 coefficient; if the student is evaluated as average, the student will be multiplied by the 0.8 coefficient; if the student is evaluated as poor, the teaching fee will not be honored.
On the other hand, it is necessary to enhance the sense of honor of internal trainers. In fact, when working as a lecturer within a company, the amount of remuneration is secondary. The lecturer is more about the title of the picture or the joy of teaching. The president can personally issue the internal trainer appointment certificate, and publicize and publicize it on the company website and OA system to establish the personal image and brand of the internal trainer. The annual outstanding internal trainer selection can also be conducted every year to select internal trainers with outstanding training results. The division will give notifications and commendations or confer corporate honorary titles, etc., and hold a grand award ceremony at the corporate annual meeting. ;