By David Galt

Are you a training department of one? Do you manage a small training department with a big workforce? There are ways to use resources wisely and accomplish you goals, and still keep your sanity.

Carolyn Balling, head of training at E-LOAN, talked about using resources wisely in small training departments in one of the last sessions of Training Magazine's Training 2006 Conference and Expo, a 5-day event attended by more than 2,000 trainers.

Balling started with a quick overview of 5 essentials for the success of any trainer:

• Determine the training needs most important to the organization
• Establish and maintain credibility with management and with workers; find ways to add value to their work experience
• Ensure you nurture a strong base of support for your efforts--you don't have to do it all alone
• Determine the best strategy for using internal and external resources
• Maintain your own resilience--take care of yourself, don't burn out

What is a good strategy for using internal and external resources? There are 3 strategy elements for using resources wisely:

• See everything
• Overlook a great deal
• Correct a little

See everything. This means take a look at all the internal resources available, and build a network to help you identify external resources. Remember, don't try to everything by yourself.

• See what other trainers are doing. Not just going to conferences, but join local associations or other groups of trainers in your area.
• Look at your company's long-term and annual goals, and workforce profile. See if your training programs fit with or support those goals. Are workers computer-savvy? Is the workforce technology-driven, performance-driven, or a mix? Determining these things can help you effectively adapt your delivery methods and the types of training materials you use.
• Stay connected. Establish relationships with all levels of the company's hierarchy: managers, executives, and workers. Be visible in the company wherever possible, but don't overdo it. Stay within your role in the company. Create internal partnerships and alliances.

Overlook a great deal. Do triage.

• Focus your efforts on the key needs of your company; therefore, focus training on current needs first, then adapt. For example, if you are doing more training because of high turnover, find out what level within the hierarchy it affects and the tenure of employees lost. This will help you tailor training for long-term retention (probably more customized) and/or for new hires (probably more generic).
• Solve the correct problem correctly. Don't just launch into refresher training if the injury rate goes up. Find out why. This is very important: Most people don't need refresher training, they need reinforcement. If the concepts or skills learned in training are not reinforced in the workplace by management or peers, refresher training is not going to change bad habits. Sometimes a change in the work process is needed, not a change in worker behavior.
• When making changes to a training program: if no one wants it, don't push it. Sell it over time.

Correct a little. You can't keep track of everything, and you can't change everything that needs to be changed.

• Measure what matters, not just what is easy to measure. Evaluate. Track the outcomes of your training, then report how you made things work better, faster, or cheaper related to the company's priorities.
• Focus on transfer of knowledge or skill, not just the quantity of training delivered. Show the results of training instead of just the number of people attending training or the hours put in. It's not much good to the company if you show that everyone attended refresher training but the injury rate hasn't changed or still increases. Correct any gaps in the transfer, not the training room attendance counts.
• Promise only what you can deliver--be reasonable, not a people-pleaser.

People are resources. Use your resources wisely--not just materials and equipment, but people, your support network. Find and use the resources of people with influence. For example, get an executive in your company to periodically show up at training events. If you are launching a new initiative, get permission to use the name of the highest executive in the company to say that he or she wants this done. But don't abuse this, as repetitive invocation of the boss's name for everything you want done will be ignored.

Cultivate the support of the immediate supervisors of the people that you train. Once training is given, it must be reinforced. Reinforcement in most cases is beyond the authority or control of the trainer. A support network is key to using your resources wisely.