The Value of External Alliances when You are a One Person Training Department
In an earlier post, we talked about the value of creating internal advisory committees in order to help you to determine and prioritize what training is needed in your organization. In this excerpt, we continue in that vein, discussing the value of external alliances.
Relationships with people who are external to your organization are valuable because they will look at your situation in a different light and undoubtedly offer a different perspective. One excellent source of peers who are external to your company is through industry organizations.
Industry organizations are where you will get the most accurate information and feedback about how your industry is implementing training. You'll be able to ask other training professionals in your industry segment about the results they achieved when they implemented training on a particular topic, and in addition, you'll get a sense of what the industry overall feels is important in terms of developing the workforce for the industry.
For example, Maintenance Solutions, the trade publication of the facilities management industry, includes a semi-monthly column regarding training needs and priorities. The October 2004 edition included an article titled "Training Spotlight: Electrical Systems, "which states, "Safety training is a continuous effort that is best done with frequent, short, job-related meetings," and continues, "Safe work performance begins with each technician knowing the personal protective equipment (PPE) he or she should wear and how to adjust and wear it correctly." If you work in the facilities management industry, you don't have to identify what training is essential or even what content should be covered in the training. Your industry is doing it for you!
In addition to having knowledge about the training needs of the industry, joining industry groups and having contacts within the industry may save you from having to reinvent the wheel. Of course, you'll want to validate that an industry need is indeed a need for your organization as well.
Belonging to an industry organization will provide you with a kind of support that you will not receive anywhere else. You can find industry organizations by using a search engine. Type the name of our industry and the word association into the search field. For example, a search on telecommunications association returned, among many others, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, and Industrial Telecommunications Association.