The 21st century workforce is becoming more temporary and fluid: Forbes predicts that 34 percent of workers will freelance by 2020, and 91 percent of Millennials expect to stay in a job for less than three years.
In the face of shorter job tenures and increased outsourcing, how can internal Learning and Development (L&D) professionals stay valuable and competitive? Here are five tips from external training consultants for how to remain indispensable to your internal training clients.
1. See yourself as an internal consultant, rather than as an employee. Develop the mental traits of a successful entrepreneur, advises Dr. Richard MacKinnon, occupational psychologist and managing director at WorkLifePsych. Focus on maximizing the benefit you bring to your internal clients, while minimizing your use of time, money, or other company resources. “The easier thing for L&D pros is to adjust their mindset,” Dr. MacKinnon says. “It doesn’t require a formal change to their job or responsibilities.”
Employees think of their job like a checklist: Show up, finish the tasks in their job description, then clock out when it’s done. This is not enough in today’s world. It’s better to start seeing your job description as a starting point or guideline for your role in your organization, but focus on the needs, wants, and desires of other departments. A good way to start acting like an internal consultant is to quit being an order taker, and start becoming proactive.
2. Ask questions and seek out problems, instead of simply taking orders. It’s tempting to simply deliver on requests other departments make, but in order to become like an internal consultant, you’ll need to be more proactive in handling orders. “The line manager often sends a first request for training, and there is always a pressure to go with that, but it’s better to ask questions,” says Dr. MacKinnon. “Ask, ‘Why?’ See if you can find a solution that is better. It’s more useful to ask what problems we’re trying to solve, over simply taking an order for a training.”
Instead of waiting for orders, go a step further and actively seek out pain points your clients face. “You need to provide programs that are relevant to what your internal clients struggle with,” says Dan Markin, leadership consultant and CEO at The Dan Markin Company. “When I market to a client, I’m trying to demonstrate my relevance and my expertise. Internal L&D professionals need to do the same thing.”
Start by asking about pain points your clients experience. Try to find solutions to problems you can help them with, then outline a training program specifically addressed to these. Use checkpoints that address each issue, then interact with the internal client as you develop the training program so you can customize it—in real time—for their needs. “This allows you to build a program in a timeframe that’s current—then sell it back to the internal client,” Markin says. Reiterate the issues you uncovered, and show how your program addresses each pain point.
3. Build credibility by being a good role model. Have you ever delivered a training program, only to be telling your coworkers to do things you don’t do yourself? One of Markin’s key advantages, in his opinion, is that his trainees only know him in the context of the training: They don’t see him every day and know him in that context, so they can focus on the actual content of the training.
“It’s a little harder for internal consultants because their clients interact with them every day and form an opinion,” Markin says. “The advantage I have as an outside consultant is they only know me in the context of the training.” If your internal clients have a good opinion of you, it will help your training, but if, for example, you are a customer service trainer, and you talk about being responsive, but other departments e-mail you 500 times and get no response, it makes it hard to stay credible.
This applies to a variety of behaviors, not just responsiveness. Conflict management, ethics, anything that allows a person to form a negative opinion can hinder his or her training, says Markin. The solution? Make sure your behaviors outside of the training context are congruent with what you want to convey to your internal clients.
4. Look outside your industry for new paradigms. Companies spent an estimated $93.6 billion on training in 2017, according to Training magazine’s 2017 Training Industry Report, yet only 30 percent of these initiatives returned a positive ROI, according to Jason Forrest, CEO and chief culture officer of Forrest Performance Group, an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company two years in a row. The solution? “When a Training department has a problem, don’t look at what other training organizations are doing,” Forrest says. “Instead, ask yourself what other industry has been in this situation, and how did they handle it?”
He notes that his company is part of the 30 percent that are succeeding because he didn’t study other training methods that are failing. Rather, he studied models that are working, such as the 12-step behavioral change program for alcohol abuse, and coaching strategies from the world’s greatest sports coaches. He then used these as models for his own training programs.
5. Take full ownership of training outcomes. Many trainers make the mistake of thinking some employees are going to get it, some won’t, and some aren’t capable of getting it. “They can’t think that way,” Forrest says. “It’s important for trainees to see that it’s up to them to figure out how to help the students get it. Trainers should see everyone as being enough.”
As an external trainer with monthly contracts open to cancellation, Forrest has to perform consistently to avoid being fired. If his team does not perform, or delivers irrelevant training, his clients won’t pay for it. Internal trainers can follow the same lead by taking full ownership of outcomes from every learner. “The company does not need training for the sake of training,” Forrest says. “They need training to achieve the outcomes they desire, to fulfill their overall mission.”
By prioritizing your internal clients’ needs, wants, and demands, and adopting the habits of successful entrepreneurs, you, too, can position yourself for a successful career as an in-house training professional.
