By Garry Hojan
A: I give a resounding “Yes” to the value in developing in-house vs. third-party training.
There is also value in stand-alone third-party training and hybrid models. In some cases, you can customize third-party training to your organization’s specifics.
We all know there is value in training. Most of us have probably heard “trial by fire,” “learning through osmosis,” or “tribal knowledge,” and these are not necessarily terms of endearment.
I’ve encountered a business owner who lost a whole generation of long-tenured employees and wondered why the new guard is “so slow and ignorant,” as if they should come in off the street and just know what those twenty-plus-year veterans learned.
To exacerbate the problem, their cornerstone employee tragically died suddenly in their parking lot. That person was an unrealized key to the culture. After he passed, the production team had to deal directly with the corner office culture. There was a mass exodus of long-time key personnel and uncaptured tribal knowledge, resulting in very real money issues related to less output and even lower quality of the reduced output. Ouch!
We can appreciate tribal knowledge, but if you don’t capture it, you’ve lost all that value when an individual leaves.
I work with another company, and all their key people are nearly aging out of the organization.
They have not prioritized capturing tribal knowledge enough to document these positions and create training programs for the inevitable new guard. As a result, they are now stressing over the risk to the company when these key individuals leave.
In-house training should be customized and tailored to specific needs. Third-party training is usually for more general needs, such as software training.
Some benefits you may realize from developing in-house training are:
-improved cost-effectiveness
-less waste
-improved quality
-faster skills transfer after onboarding (a critical time when costs are front end, the quicker/better you can train, the -faster a team member is contributing)
-enhanced team-building opportunities
-increased employee engagement through a focus on relevant skills
-and the ability to foster a culture of clarity and continuous learning within your organization while maintaining confidentiality around company-specific information.
If you ever intend to sell your business, in-house training may help. Those doing their due diligence will look at how dependent the company is on your presence and knowledge and on key personnel, including almost everyone if your company is an SBE.
Can anyone come in and run this company (lower risk, higher value), or will we need to develop that training system in the business while being dependent on key individuals? Higher risk, lower value.
Companies that have well-developed in-house training have higher value and are, in my opinion, more profitable than those that do not.
Need help developing your in-house training? Let’s chat
There is never any sales pressure, and I offer a simple guarantee…I provide higher value over cost, or you don’t pay.
You can email me at ghojan@jhaero.com or call my cell at 208-627-2565.
