ISSUE 6: April 2007

In This Issue:

• Outsourcing in Corporate Training
• New Framemaker Plug-in Makes Revision Control Fast and Easy
• A Message from Val

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GUEST OPINION

By Reesa Abrams, Founder and Principal, TECHNO*COACH

Outsourcing in Corporate Training

Training has many functions it can deliver to a corporation. The successful results of training services can integrate a company with its customers and partners, resulting in increased revenues, lowered costs and higher customer satisfaction. The question is how to gain those results in the best manner. To take advantage of training’s potential, it is important to know when to outsource its development.

Hiring a professional contractor who has “done it before” can save a lot of wrong turns. In the initial stages of setting up the training operation, a contractor can be very useful in planning the training, and in identifying and selecting training vendors. He or she can also assist in the development of standards, forms and return-on-investment measures.

It is now possible to manage global assessment and training using local resources. Professional organizations, institutions, and outsourcing agencies can leverage their large networks to run organizational assessment projects worldwide on most standard topics, such as compliance training, soft skills training and operations training. The local contractors visit the customer locations, and then the contractors collaborate on the web to integrate the results and make the recommendations.  This process is cheaper and more productive than having a single person do the work, not to mention the increased mindshare and local cultural knowledge leveraged. What one employee can accomplish in a year can be accomplished in one-half the elapsed time using a team of contractors.

Let’s take a look at the different types of training that a company may be implementing with an eye for whether outsourcing can offer an advantage.

Compliance training is a common training need in this age of Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and other government-imposed regulations. The outsourcing task for compliance training primarily revolves around finding a certified vendor for the content, and administratively using your training infrastructure to run reports and work with management to ensure compliance.  For most professional certifications, the governing professional organization usually provides training or access to certified training vendors. This can also apply to custom training requirements, such as when a company wants to train all of its employees on its code of conduct, which might include topics such as harassment, discrimination and retaliation.

Soft skills training should be considered for outsourcing. Psychology research suggests that people need private space to change and that change is not always a simple process.  Contract soft-skills trainers can provide an environment of objectivity and confidentiality that people need to make the required changes. The Silicon Valley South Bay Organizational Development Network monthly meetings are a healthy discussion on the success and failure of soft skills programs (www.sbodn.com).

Operations training can be broken down into product training, process training, and enterprise technology training.

• Product training is usually a combination of integrating the marketing message, industry and competitive information, scenarios of successful product implementations and functional instructions.  Often frequently asked question (FAQ) generation is also required.  The job of the contractor is to learn the company’s culture, language, standards and processes, and blend this information with the requirements for product training. There are contracting vendors who specialize in producing a company’s product training.
   
• Process training is about capturing as-is processes, and documenting and implementing to-be processes using methodologies such as Lean and Six Sigma. Experienced contract professionals are trained in how to accomplish this task in a manner that is positive to the corporate culture. Contractors can be used to uncover the as-is processes, and also to train the employee and the partner base in the new processes as they evolve. Process and product training are also necessary ingredients in new-hire training.
   
• Enterprise technology rollouts are now a regular part of most companies. They range from simple ASP implementations to complex custom user interfaces and functionality. Hiring someone who has “done it before” can save a lot of wrong turns. Multiple contractor roles should be considered to successfully assure the rollout.
   
  • Project management: An experienced contract project manager can ward off problems downstream that your internal employee could never see if he or she has never done an enterprise technology rollout before.
     
  • Plans and specifications development: Systems engineers with outside experience follow standard processes to complete the requirements of the system. They know from other implementations what questions to ask and how other companies solved the same problem. In this case, their horizontal industry knowledge can reduce costs and risk.
     
  • Training, documentation, and internal marketing development: Experienced trainers know that enterprise rollouts require both facilitation and content development. The contractor assures that the required content supports adoption of the new technology.
     
  • Transferring existing content to eLearning: Once the content is created, bringing in a contractor to integrate it into eLearning courses provides consistent worldwide message delivery.

In summary, there are many kinds of training required by a corporation. If a strong relationship is made with an outsourcing company, the right person to do the job is just a phone call away and the training manager is the hero who meets all the needs of the corporate users.

Oak Hill Corporation has a wide stable of professionals who can meet your needs. I am proud to be one of them.

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Reesa Abrams is a training professional who can leverage strategic, technical and eLearning skills to improve operations and service or sell product.   She offers a unique strategic-technical-quality focus that integrates business units by creating partnerships, cost savings, new products and better operations.