Your firm’s inhouse training program can be very effective in providing courses in technical topics, human resources information, presentations, and IT software – personnel will be trained and the professional development program will be evaluated as being successful.
Building skills is, of course, the essential reason to run an inhouse training program. Excellent professional development efforts not only provide required CEUs, but also keep your personnel up-to-speed, sharpen their problem-solving and decision-making expertise, and provide an important perk for attracting and retaining professionals who deliver excellent client service. So, what’s missing?
Take advantage of the time individuals spend in a structured learning setting and focus on how training can deliver something else. Firms that want to maximize the contribution that each employee can make to the growth of the company, need to view training with a broader agenda. Each course you conduct, each lunch-and-learn you offer, each seminar you present allows an often overlooked opportunity – the forum for promoting your firm’s vision and corporate culture.
The best inhouse training programs blend big-picture thinking with practical applications. The big-picture includes infusing staff with the corporate culture – subtly. Maintaining and promoting the vision means planning courses and seminars that dovetail directly with the firm’s business plans. When you assess needs and set quality standards, match your decisions with your vision for the firm in the next five years, not for the next big job. Integrate the vision into all instructional sessions – weaving in messages that reinforce the firm’s mission, greater goals, and philosophy.
The key to spreading the vision-message is to educate all inhouse instructors in how to integrate corporate culture into their technical, HR, marketing, and IT subject matter. Formal train-the-trainer seminars work, as well as informal discussions among principals, senior managers and instructors. Provide a forum for discussing ways to incorporate the global objectives and growth-thinking into ongoing continuing education efforts.
Expand your training goals. Allow professional development to include the firm’s broader ideas so design professionals at every level develop an even greater commitment to helping the firm build its reputation and achieve its growth goals.
