The 2 Types of staff training

“Training is the act of equipping oneself with means to enable an individual or group to acquire knowledge, in a contractual perspective, in connection with a given context in order to an objective.” T. ADOUIN

Generally, two types of staff training are distinguished: internal and external, when developing the training plan, the Training Manager must validate for each planned action the choice: external or internal training.

For A. Saint-Sauveur, this choice results from several questions:

Is the need for training collective or individual?

Is the content of the training “over-sized” or “ready to train”?

Do we have the resources to deliver this training internally or will we use an external agency for an intra or intra-company service? So here are some useful elements for the Training Manager.

Table de matières

External training

“Implementation by an enterprise of training activities for its staff, using an external training provider. The latter is the masterpiece of the training action and ensures the pedagogical responsibility” (source : AFNOR).

Inter-company training

It brings together trainees from different companies and applies a standard programme contained in the provider’s training catalogue.

It has some advantages:

This type of internship is tailored to individual needs, or involves only a few employees, and for which the company does not have specific skills internally;

It is easy to manage (logistics, administrative monitoring…);

There is a wide choice of organizations and therefore of training, especially on the classic themes: management, languages, bureautics, personal development, logistics, finance/accounting…;

The inter-business internship takes place outside the employer’s premises: it allows the employee to get out of his/her working environment and take a step back, outside the daily pressure;

Meeting employees from other companies, having a common concern but from different contexts, often leads to fruitful exchanges: it all depends on the group.

However, the following disadvantages are noted:

The contents of the internship are not individualized.

The training manager knows (and the trainee knows too) that the training will not be 100% appropriate.

The employee will sometimes feel like he is wasting his time and will feel some frustration (expressed in the evaluation of the internship);

The cost: sending in individual internship is expensive.

Enterprise training

All trainees belong to the same company.

There are two cases:

The analysis of individual needs shows a fairly standard common demand. The provider will carry out a catalogue program while adapting it to the needs of the participants. Instead, it will use the usual work documents of employees for a concrete application.

Advantage: the cost of the external trainer is distributed between several trainees (the same for an identified need for entry into the game as a collective, and can find its answer in the existing internship catalogues on the market);

The need is collective but requires a tailor-made response, based on a specific program adapted to the context of the company. The training manager will then launch a tender.

Internal training

Terms and Conditions

The internal training is designed and carried out by the company for its employees, with its own means (trainers, equipment…).

Implementing it implies being able to define training programmes (content, educational process…);

the advantages of internal training

For the Training Manager, internal training is a relevant solution when:

seek a tailor-made training, adapted to the specifics and constraints of the company;

wishes to implement actions relating to specific professions;

does not find the appropriate supply on the market to meet the expressed needs.

There are five types of internal training that the company can adapt:

Adaptation training

The company is always seeking to improve its operating results. Growth of turnover, reduction of revenue prices, improvement of productivity….

It can these goals by increasing the knowledge of employees, by improving their ability to solve problems, by making them able to use new methods, or by developing behaviors, know-how or knowledge to be more effective.

Adaptation training is used either from the entry into the position (initial adaptation), or at the level of a recycling to carry out an update of practices. The trained personins the same type of employment, remains in the same professional sphere, and in that same profession.

Training Personnel forecast management or mobility

In this case, there are changes in the work. There is a change of occupation, either on the occasion of a promotion or to maintain employment as a result of a removal from the original position.

This training is long-term and involves a comprehensive learning of the use of new tools. It aims to maintain staff employment or to develop motivation through internal promotion.

Basic Intellectual Tool Training (General Culture)

This is a general training (languages, mathematics, logical analysis of situations, decision-making…) that will raise the level of staff. It is often used before engaging the employee in a “mobility” training. We could also call it pre-professional training. This training usually operates on a voluntary basis and registration is based on a catalogue.

Corporate culture training

For this type of training, the management of the company defines, in a more or less centralised way, what it considers to be the common culture of the society. Training actions will then be proposed to all employees who can register on the basis of volunteering.

The power of the hierarchy will be weaker, because it can hardly resist the demand of an employee who wants to introduce himself to the company culture decided by the management. It is the trainee who has most of the authority to register.

Training mobilization on an enterprise project

Training actions can be launched to accompany some of the company’s projects. These can be the implementation of a corporate charter, the launching of a quality project, the completion of a plan to improve the use of certain resources, etc.

The aim is to generate synergy at the level of all actors in order to produce maximum efficiency. For these operations, a training mode is generally sought that involves the greatest number of people, or at least all of those who influence the success of the project.