Qualify and certify in-house trainers

Passing on knowledge and imparting skills is an everyday process in companies - for example, when managers explain something to new employees or specialists to inexperienced colleagues. Usually this happens in a less structured form - quite naturally and incidentally.

However, it is not uncommon for the transfer of knowledge and skills to need to take place in a structured way - for example, when companies are faced with the challenge of training a large number of people in a relatively short time or on a continuous basis; for example

due to legal requirements or

• because something is constantly changing in their market or
• because their employees need a high level of behavioural safety in their everyday work or
• because they want to be the premium provider in their market or
• because they are growing rapidly and have to permanently integrate new employees.

Then the companies usually need in-house trainers to achieve their goals.

In-house trainers have many advantages

In-house trainers have the following advantages over external trainers:

• They know the culture, history and work processes in the organization. They do not have to be "trained" first.
• They are anchored in the organization and have an internal company network.
• They are available and approachable in case of acute questions / problems.
• They are colleagues in whom the addressees have confidence.
• They can also be used to organise training courses at very short notice.
• With them, "smart" training designs adapted to the work processes can be implemented (for example, one hour every two weeks) - and at reasonable costs, since the often high ancillary costs for travel to and from external trainers are eliminated.

Because of these advantages, in-house (technical) trainers are almost indispensable if a company wants to develop into a learning organisation.

Specialist trainers are mostly part-time trainers

This is why larger companies often employ specialist trainers who work full-time to train either colleagues, customers or business partners, for example, in the use of certain products or processes. Most trainers, however, are part-time trainers. They are for example

• Managers at the operational level, who sometimes slip into the role of trainer, for example to train (new) employees, or
• professionally experienced professionals / specialists who regularly perform a trainer function when new procedures or problem solutions are introduced in the company. That is to say:
• For most expert trainers, coaching is an additional task. And:
• They are not trained educators or psychologists; rather, they have been selected as expert trainers precisely because of their in-depth expertise and professional experience.

The requirements for specialist trainers are manifold

Nevertheless, even if the training concepts used were developed by the human resources department, specialist trainers need pedagogical know-how - for example, about this,

• how learning processes take place in people,
• what motivates people to learn and
• how to convey complex learning content. They should also have a feel for people, for example, to be able to assess them:
• What makes my counterpart tick?
• How do I get it?
• If necessary, how can I motivate them to change their attitude/behaviour?

In addition, specialist trainers should have certain personality traits. For example, they should enjoy working and communicating with people - also so that they perceive their additional task as an enrichment and not as an additional burden. All of this needs to be taken into account in the selection, training and further education of specialist trainers.

Individual, goal-oriented qualification necessary

Many demands are made on professional trainers: professional, methodical-didactical and personal. These requirements are not only changing, they are also continuously increasing. The content that (prospective) trainers need to be taught in their basic and advanced training is correspondingly diverse. These should always be adapted to the respective trainer's field of activity, because IT or technical trainers are sometimes faced with different requirements than behavioural trainers. It also makes a difference whether a trainer primarily acts as a product trainer for customers and sales partners or trains his colleagues in everyday business.

It is also important to consider: How much (previous) experience do the trainers have? Are they rather greenhorns or old hands with regard to their function of imparting knowledge and skills to other people? But here, too, it is important to differentiate. For example, the issue of self-image as a trainer usually plays a major role in the training of newcomers. However, it can also be of great importance in the further training of experienced trainers - for example, if the function of in-house further training has changed and its central objective is now no longer:

• "Employees should be provided with the necessary (technical) knowledge and skills", but:
• "Empower employees to identify and solve problems on their own."

Then even experienced trainers have to rethink their self-image and role behaviour.

Integrate face-to-face and online learning

The youngsters do not always have less prior knowledge than the old hands. When it comes to online learning, for example, the newcomers as digital natives often have a higher level of media competence than the experienced trainers.

The topic of online learning or computer- and network-supported learning is playing an increasingly important role in trainer education and training, because thanks to modern information and communication technology, companies today have more ways and means at their disposal to impart knowledge to their employees - for example in the form of learning platforms, online tutorials and learning videos. But with them, they can usually only provide learners with the necessary technical or factual knowledge. However, when it comes to ensuring that they develop the necessary action competence and behavioral confidence in their day-to-day work, there is usually no way around the use of specialist trainers - regardless of whether this takes place in

• (Classroom) seminars and trainings,
• Online tutorials and webinars,
• on-the-job training and coaching or
• video conferencing or online coaching. That is why blended learning concepts, which combine online learning with face-to-face learning, are playing an increasingly important role in company training and further education. This also results in new competence requirements for in-house trainers.

Ensuring quality with trainer certification Therefore, a growing number of companies are asking themselves the following questions:

• Should we in future regularly carry out a competence check on our specialist trainers to see to what extent they (still) have the competences they need for their work? And: Should we have our trainers certified as a quality assurance measure?

For quite a few companies, these questions are superfluous, because they are obliged to do so, for example, due to legal requirements. They must ensure that their employees or certain functional groups in their organization receive regular training - and that this training is provided by people who can demonstrate that they have the necessary qualifications. Other companies have imposed this obligation on themselves - for example, because they want to be the quality leader in their market and want to promote themselves with the certification of their product trainers, for example.

Learning organization requires certified trainers

However, most companies primarily have their in-house trainers systematically educated, trained and certified because they have recognized: Without highly qualified expert trainers, we can neither develop the necessary change dynamics in the VUKA world nor achieve our corporate goals. Accordingly, they invest a lot of time and money in ensuring the quality of their trainers and developing their company into a learning organization.

The goal is also becoming increasingly important: companies want to show appropriate appreciation for the women and men who perform the additional task of "trainer" in their organisation. For this reason, they are integrating trainer training and certification into their internal company career paths - also in order to keep the motivation of the specialist trainers, most of whom are highly qualified professionals, high. This is especially important in times when there is a shortage of highly qualified and motivated professionals.