Corporate Training and Development is the term used to describe learning opportunities provided by a company to help its employees gain the skills needed to perform specific job duties. For project management, corporate training includes employee’s mastery of industry standards for Agile, Lean Six Sigma, ITIL, and Business Analysis. Corporate training, or learning and development as it may be called, is focused on helping a business grow in-demand skills, reduce turnover, foster morale, and meet customer needs.
Whether your company has an internal training team that manages all learning programs, you are the training coordinator for a department, or you are a Human Resources professional seeking development resources for a team, providing your employees with high-quality training solutions has a direct impact on the business.
To better vet external training providers, corporate learning professionals consider how the needed skills should be taught, the capabilities of the provider, and the ease of developing the partnership.
How To Know If You Need A Corporate Training Provider
Depending on your internal training personnel and resources, you may be able to consistently meet all learning needs internally, or, you may find that you are managing the work of the external provider whose experts deliver the majority of the training. To best meet your employees’ learning needs, use a consistent set of criteria to determine if you can leverage internal resources, need to outsource to experienced providers like PMA, or should combine internal and external sources.
How To Select A Corporate Training Provider
When you are seeking a professional service, such as a hair stylist or a mechanic, you know there are many ways to pick one. However, that does not mean all providers are the same. If someone says, “I have never worked on an engine before, but I’m pretty sure after a couple of online videos, I can put in a new transmission for you” your confidence level is most likely not very high. (Or you are someone comfortable with super high levels of risk!) Corporate training is just like any professional service in that you need to make sure you get the highest quality service for your budget as possible. Your own reputation is on the line when you select a corporate training provider for your company, so you need to make best efforts to find the right partner.
1. Find Corporate Training Provider
There are many paths to finding a corporate training provider, and any them can result in a great partnership or sadly, in time wasted with a poor fit. To find the external training provider that can meet the most of your needs, do not just simply rely on a company that may have delivered training in the past nor the company a manager claims is “just the best, I’m sure of it!”. Use a variety of channels to locate provider options so that you can properly evaluate for an effective learning and development result.
2. Evaluate Corporate Training Provider Services
Even with glowing customer reviews, a corporate training provider may not have the courses or customization that your company needs. The trainer that has created your leadership development training should not be the same that delivers your Project Management skills and certification classes. Once you have found your potential providers, make sure that they can meet your requirements in following areas.
3. Determine Corporate Training Provider Credibility
Use the same high standards you would for any service provider when determining the credibility of a new external training company. It is unlikely that a provider seeking your business will admit you can do better elsewhere; it is up to you to make sure that the training provider upon which your reputation is connected is able to meet your employee development needs. Ask the corporate training providers to provide information for each item below:
How To Get Started With A Corporate Trainer Provider
Whether you leverage internal training, external training, or a combination of resources, having a standard process for selecting employee development resources ensures better outcomes for your business. The good news is that you have already found a potential corporate training provider and can move to evaluation.
Review PMA’s course catalog options for in-demand skills or learn about custom training solutions to see if there is a potential fit. Use the comment field below to share your own best practices developing a productive partnership with corporate training providers.
Contact PMA to learn more about how your employees’ project management training goals can be met.
