Know what you need
If you do have a budget for IT training, there are many options available both in the types of courses and the method of delivery.
First of all, however, you should conduct a skills assessment to see exactly what your department needs. Most training providers can provide this.
Some lingo for you: in the world of training, providers are known as Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) and skill assessments are referred to as a training needs analysis.
For a fee, an RTO will come out to your office and conduct a training needs analysis. A good RTO will actually conduct the analysis with you and transfer the skills so you can do it on an ongoing basis. It is also important to pick a good RTO for the analysis because it is most likely you will stick with them for the actual training as well. Unfortunately finding a good trainer isn’t an easy task. Actually, finding a trainer at all isn’t an easy task because they tend to not advertise. Most RTOs we spoke to find new business through word of mouth, so you will need to brush up on your networking skills and ask around.
If you already know what course you are after, for example a Cisco certification, then you are probably best off visiting the Cisco Web site to find a list of its preferred training suppliers, this should help narrow down the search.
Redman also recommends talking to the actual trainers, and visiting the premises to inspect the classrooms and equipment.
What can you get?
Richard Gordon of In Learning, a training company that specialises in e-learning for IT courses, splits IT training into five areas:
- IT certification—self study animals—people who are motivated and want to get into the industry. It’s still a very clear and recognised benchmark for employers of IT staff;
- Developers—a strange breed whose whole existence depends on staying up to date on programming and developer tools;
- Network administration—normally requiring skills upgrades for new operating systems or networks;
- Desktop applications—applicable to every job function using a desktop computer and standard office productivity software; and
- Soft skills—personal and professional development programs. Gordon believes soft skills will be the fastest growing area of training, which he also thinks is well suited to the e-learning environment, partly because management principles stay the same over time.
Dimension Data, a long time training provider of technical IT training, has recently branched out into soft skills training. Just a couple of months ago Di Data started up five soft skills courses (time management, leadership, teams, customers, and communication) aimed at IT professionals.
“A lot of people over the last year or so have just started to identify that there is a significant gap in soft skills of IT people,” says Guy Newman, who is managing Dimension Data’s soft skills courses. “It will take off very soon. Most IT jobs out there have some kind of interpersonal skill advertised in the job . . . it’s something that IT people are required to have.”
While the soft skills make IT staff more pleasant to communicate with, Newman also thinks having these skills helps IT people to advance in the organisation.
Soft skills courses designed especially for IT professionals is a new idea and Dimension Data is testing the waters at the moment, waiting to see what the uptake will be like. All of the five courses only run for one day each and cost $395. Newman conducts the courses, currently on a six-month program alternating between Melbourne and Sydney.
How do you want it?
Once you know what you and your staff need to be trained in, next you need to decide on the type of training. By this I mean, whether you want to send staff off to an instructor-led course, whether you want it conducted in-house, or if you would rather use e-learning methods.
The most traditional—and most popular—method of training is an instructor-led course, generally held at the premises of the training provider. Most IT courses are generally no more than five days long, which is about the maximum amount of time a company can afford to have a IT member away from the office. It is also the shortest length of time needed to learn the necessary skills for many IT courses.
“Organisations do find that having someone away for five days is a difficult stretch, but unfortunately a lot of the courses are designed to be presented over five full days of instructor-led training,” says Redman.
But there are ways around it. “Where a client feels five days is just too long to be out of the office, especially if they are sending a number of staff, we are prepared to run our courses on Thursday, Friday and give them a weekend, then finish on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So there are ways we can work around it,” she explains.
Most students like instructor-led training because it combines both hands-on tuition and lecture-based tuition, it gives time away from the office, and it also feels like you are getting value for money.
Conducting training in your own office, while convenient, can be too convenient. The students are easily distracted, and IT staff are always in demand so the likelihood is that a drama (however minor) will occur and students will be called back to work.
One method gaining popularity is “train the trainer”—where the company sends one staff member off to the course on the provisio that they teach the rest of the staff when they get back. RTOs have set up courses catering to this, so the course also involves imparting teaching knowledge to the students.
However, this does have its drawbacks . . . the person being sent off to the course may not like the added pressure of having to teach it when he or she returns, and also the training may not be as effective for the rest of the staff. But it is cost effective, hence the rise in popularity.
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