How to find a training provider/course

Transferring skills within your business

Once you've identified your business' training needs, you must decide how best to meet them. Sometimes, you may find the skills your business needs already lie in your organisation. Considering how best to transfer those skills to others is the best way forward.

For example, a senior employee in your finance department may be best placed to tutor a more junior employee in the intricacies of accounting software. A new salesperson may best learn how to sell your products by shadowing more experienced members of the sales team, or on-the-job training with careful supervision may be the best way to transfer skills in your company.

Pros and cons

Such in-house training can be useful for transferring the skills and knowledge specific to your business as well as more general skills. It can have very real advantages. For example, it can be:

• focused on your business' specific needs
• timed to least disrupt your business
• cheaper than outsourcing your training
• monitored carefully and its pace adjusted accordingly

However, it may be that using experienced employees to train others is not a cost-effective use of their time. Such in-house trainers may also be very skilled at their work but less able when it comes to imparting those skills.

In addition, their knowledge may need up-dating and they could also end up passing on bad habits.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• What kind of training do you need?
• Transferring skills within your business
• What to look for in a training provider
• Training providers: professional bodies, trade associations, business organisations
• Training providers: private sector providers
• Training providers: mentors and coaches
• Public sector sources of help

 

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