L&D managers look forward to the new age of customised training
L&D managers can look forward to services that will allow them to select and personalise training services from multiple service providers
It is common knowledge that an L&D manager spends a great deal of time in finding a service provider or while nominating employees for external public workshops. Both situations present unique operational and procedural challenges. While undertaking these exercises, an L&D manager is faced with questions around the efficacy of choices and the basis of selection.
Arranging an in-house training with an external vendor/trainer
While the L&D department may have a bunch of trainers who’ve worked with the organisation in the past, there may be a pressing need to employ an expert practitioner from the field. While the current organisational trainer did a good job last time, there is always uncertainty on whether the trainer can cater to new demands. An L&D manager always faces the need to reach out to someone new and introduce new training delivery ideas. One of the most annoying questions that a delivery manager faces is “Oh you hired the same trainer again?”
While the L&D manager might feel the need to try out new services and training delivery models, operational hassles might compel him to drop the idea. Procedural complications of identifying, selecting, interviewing, customising etc. with a completely new trainer(s) all over again may appear daunting for many.
This pain area is something the organisation is aware of but is afraid to take any action. Many L&D managers hope for an eBay kind of service, which is more personalised and customised. Though there are such services available in USA, there are very few in India.
Nominating employees to external public workshops
Many companies are clueless about how to institutionalise the process of sending the right people for the right external training opportunities.
In many cases, organisations take the easy route - Ask employees to Google and figure out the right training he/she is looking for in the market. Every individual has different training needs and mapping vendors against each training need is virtually unthinkable.
Training service providers are more interested in delivering large scale in-house trainings compared to individual training. While few in numbers, there are couple of Indian start-ups that are trying to address these problems. This plugs a critical demand gap and L&D managers can expect a lot of exciting activity in this space.
L.A. Balamurugan is Co-Founder and CEO, Bookmytrainings.com
