As a business owner, you understand the importance of training employees. It’s how knowledge and
skills are transferred, and it’s essential to maintaining growth, building new revenue and generating
profit. Without trained employees, your business will suffer – and customers will notice poor service
from your incompetent staff. But traditional training isn’t cheap. In these tough economic times, it can
be a challenge to free up staff for training or hire outsiders or prepare a dedicated internal team to
conduct it. There is an affordable solution: It’s called Train the Trainer.
What is Train the Trainer?
Let’s say you’d like to send your project management team to a training event in some distant city but
can’t afford it. Using the Train the Trainer model, you would send one employee who would return
from the event and proceed to train the project managers who didn’t attend in person. Though it’s not
as beneficial as sending everyone, the approach is considerably less expensive and enables knowledge
transfer in a situation where there would have been none.
As the name implies, the Train the Trainer approach involves tapping internal resources more than other
training approaches. Besides the example above, it can be used to educate staff on process changes,
new software and other areas where traditional training might have been used in less lean times.
Are there other benefits?
Train the Trainer sessions create an atmosphere of collaboration and help build teams in the workplace.
Here’s an example: Let’s say your accounting department is deploying new software for tracking
expenses. In traditional training, the software vendor would supply training that it provides to other
customers. There is very little customization for your organization’s specific needs. With Train the
Trainer, one or more users (depending on the size of your company) would receive in-depth training by
the vendor and the accounting department. They would then hold sessions for their colleagues on how
to use the new system. Unlike the traditional training, the sessions can be held when it’s convenient for
your company and your trainees, and it can be focused to your organization’s specific needs.
With Train the Trainer, your organization not only transfers knowledge but also creates a group of
power users who can provide guidance and tips long after formal training is over. In addition, the new
system gains credibility when employees see that one of their own is leading the training.
What are the pitfalls?
There are some risks in the Train the Trainer approach. Trainees might feel like management is unwilling
to spend money on a traditional session. If the trainer isn’t prepared, participants might feel like they’re
wasting time. These problems, however, are easily avoided. The first step is communicating the fact
that management is behind the training methodology. Let employees know that you believe there are
benefits to this approach to training – and that it’s not all about money. Second, make sure the training
sessions are well-planned. There is nothing worse than having to sit through a poorly organized session.
Finally, make sure the trainer makes the session interactive and doesn’t lecture. The greatest benefit of
the Train the Trainer approach is the back-and-forth among colleagues.
What can be done to ensure effectiveness?
If your organisation is serious about training in general and the Train the Trainer approach specifically,
consider selecting one or two employees to become certified master trainers. They would take a
number of courses to build up their skills and learn best practices so that they can help others upon
their return to the office. The master trainers, however, wouldn’t lead all training at your office.
Instead, they would guide other people in preparation for their Train the Trainer sessions.
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