Quick question; is there any kind of guide or rule of thumb about ratio of trainers to staff? In an organisation of 250 people, what kind of training team would you expect to see? Trainers, admin staff, etc etc. I am interested because I feel absolutely under resourced! There's only two of us to do everything including all admin and strategy work, never min training! Guidance, thoughts, comments, please let me know!
Thanks.
Jacquie MacIver-Young
3 Responses
it all depends
There has been a similar question posted before, so you might find some usefull stuff if you trawl the history on this site.
But my opinion is ….
It all depends on your model…
What is the ongoing training need of the population?
What is your strategy? (in house, managed, outsourced, consultants, on-line, blended etc)
Technical or managerial or both?
Co-located staff or de-centralised?
Where is the demarcation between line responsibility and training team?
I know of wasteful training teams who have lots of staff and still pay consultants to do all the “work” and I know teams who do it all themselves very cost effectively.
It ain’t how many people you have got…it is how they function and what they achieve (without burning themselves out!) that counts
I agree with Russell
It does depend on the model you are working with. What are the expectations of you and your function? Clearly if it is to deliver, administer, innovate etc. etc. then as you are experiencing-it is a challenge.
The other factors I would add to Russell’s list are: *finance/ budget and how it is used.
* diversity of roles in your organisation.
I have seen organisations that work very well on a 1:250+ ratio and others that struggle with a very low trainer: people ratio.
Justify your existence?
Jacquie – in some cases it is a matter of justifying your existence – agreeing the impact you have on your company’s business. Some organisations still see training as a (barely) necessary evil (unfortunately). There does seem to be great variation across industries. What industry are you in?
One angle you might look at is the impact you might be able to make on staff turnover. Proactive training programmes can have a significant effect and make significant savings. This might allow you to break out of the loop and achieve the necessary investment to set up ongoing outsourced trainer resources and on-off creation of individualised (e-learning) elements.