Benefits of Training Contract Learning and Development Consultants

Interview with Tom P., eLearning Project Management Pro

Is it a common practice for contract employees to receive training as part of an assignment?  Is this something you’ve experienced?

Sure, it can happen, but rarely.  Oftentimes organizations skip over the whole training piece and assume the consultant understands their company’s culture and the nature of the role.  Many clients may think that it’s important that a consultant knows that information before starting the contract.  But the fact is that a consultant will build a better product if they understand something about the company and who they are working with.

Companies that train by design understand that it greatly benefits them.  Providing orientation or training that helps the consultant understand what the mission, vision, and values of the company are, helps the consultant align the project with overall business goals.

Some companies are very good at training their consultants. If the company doesn’t provide up-front training, however, I ask for it.  Of course, sometimes it’s available and sometimes it isn’t.  What I have found is that companies that have strong performance management models tend to do a very good job of onboarding and training consultants.

Do you recommend companies train their contract employees?  

Definitely. In the end, training helps ensure that the consultant is in sync with overall company objectives, as well as the goals of the specific project they’re working on. And if a consultant really understands the project, they’ll also be able to identify alternative ways of realizing those goals.  And that solution may be something the client wouldn’t have been able to see.

For example, one company I worked for was interested in doing a training program following a merger.  The company that was being acquired needed to get up to speed on the new systems. Because everybody at the acquired company needed to be trained, the client decided e-learning and instructor-led training would be the best methods of delivery. However, after I mapped job roles across the company, one thing became apparent—the training method specified was going to be very costly, and there were more effective methods for certain job roles. So, because I understood their business objectives, I was able to design a training solution that was both more effective and less costly to develop.

What are the benefits a company can expect to gain when training a contract training & development consultant?

Companies hire consultants for a couple of reasons:  as an extra pair of hands and for expertise.  Training a contract learning and development consultant on your company’s mission, vision, and values often results in a reduction of costs, increased productivity, a product that is consistent with corporate standards, and a product that looks and sounds like it was developed by someone internally.  Investing in training can also help reduce the amount of time it takes to build out deliverables.  And, as if that weren’t enough, I think it can improve working relationships between the consultant and various people within the organization.

Let me give you another example. On a project through Clarity Consultants with McKesson, I learned very quickly about their corporate culture.  If you walked through the company you were expected to greet other employees, and if anyone talked to you in a disrespectful way it was your job to call them on it.  These rules where an integral part of their corporate culture.  This was important, since I could’ve alienated many colleagues by simply not saying hello in the hallway.

How is training important, even critical, to a consultant’s ability to succeed on the job?

Training is very important. Bottom line? It  helps you produce a better product. And you’ll normally be able to produce the product in fewer review cycles, as opposed to a slow iterative process. A consultant may have the right skills and background, but training provides the larger context for the project.

What are the potential risks of not training contract employees?

There is a very real risk that the training objectives a consultant develops may not line up with the organizational goals the training is being developed to achieve. 

A good example is the company that hired me to develop training for their district managers. They told me the purpose of the project was to enable district managers to provide business consulting services to their customers.  The client was an office supply company and they sold to some 5,000 “mom and pop” stores around the U.S.. 

However, the client’s actual goal was to enable business owners to focus more on their financials.  However, the small business owners were reluctant to share any sales information.  So, the training program I ended up developing was a tool distributed on a CD-ROM that helped evaluate the financial health of each store.  It included basic training on critical ratios, how to maximize impact on those ratios, how to set up the tools, and how to use them.  It was a very different product than originally envisioned, but it suited the client’s business need.

So, had I designed sales training for the district managers as originally intended, the program would’ve missed the mark.  It would’ve been a good piece of training, but wouldn’t have suited the client’s needs.  This is why orienting a consultant is critical to any learning and development project’s success.

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