Training? How do I decide?

Hello, once again.

Since starting working for Lighthouse, I have undertaken many roles and have had to perform a varied range of tasks in Health & Safety. From 250 DSE assessments (on my very 1^st week as a H&S advisor), to doing an environmental assessment of a plant yard.

However, none of those issues come close to how hard it is to construct a blog for our clients to read. Each of our H&S staff are required to complete 2 blogs a month, that means we should have 10 blogs a month. That actually is quite tough. Especially writing about H&S!!

SO what am I going to talk about today? Well, as this is going out to our clients, I am going to shed some light on booking & completing training courses. Many companies will be required, by client pressure, or through investing in staff, to have a round of training completed.

Now this can present many issues, such as time away from work for staff, pay issues, loss of production, costs. All of which are valid concerns. So at Lighthouse, we understand these issues and assist in reducing the impact of such training.

• Firstly we have fantastic admin team here in Ivy Street. The strong team assist everyday with practical dilemmas proposed to them when training is concerned. All of the team have a detailed knowledge of the courses we deliver and are not phased by “silly” questions.
• Secondly, we offer solutions. Say for instance you have 10 staff that require 5 days training and you have the worry of booking the courses, worrying about dates, costs etc. Lighthouse steps in… Give us your issues to resolve, we can construct a package of delivering your training needs, spreading the training over a time period at a date and time that suits you. The admin team have over come many challenges and rarely fail in any request of training.
• Thirdly, In house training against External courses. This is always an issue for companies. Do you request a full in house course at your premises or send staff piece meal to attend external courses?

Well is where my experiences can assist, both have positives and negatives. So in house, the Positives: It can work out cheaper per person, it can be held at the premises of your choosing, it can also be delivered at dates set by yourself and finally no external candidates are on the course so training can be better tailored to suit your needs. Negatives. As the training, more often than not, is at the head office’s many staff whilst on breaks fail to fully attend back at times stated and are more encompassed in work that the training which means you do not get full value for money at times. The training facilities/environment are not fully up to standard and can lead to disruptions such as noise or cramped conditions. As there are no external candidates the training can become to specific and topics can be undiscovered in full as they may be no real need to explore them. As there are many candidates attending it’s a bigger disruption to staff at work and more down time will be needed.

Now compare these to external courses. Positives. You get a great learning environment with all the facilities needed including coffee’s and lunch (even biscuits). As you now have a range of trades and people you get varied discussions and experiences so it leads to better learning. Admin issues can resolved there and then with our admin team. Candidates do not feel inclined to “remain at work” whilst away from their office. Cost and attendance can be spread over a longer time period that in house courses. Over to the Negatives. Compared to in house training, external courses can work out more expensive per head. Candidate will be fully away from work with little or no involvement to work production.

Look over it, my professional advice is that external courses are by far and away the better value for money and easiest to implement. You get better feedback and a more professional teaching level.

However here at Lighthouse we simply just aim to facilitate your training needs, what ever they are. We have delivered training around the UK for over 10 years now and we pretty good at what we do. Just ask.

Hope you enjoyed the read.

HC