How to Develop and Deliver Large Scale Corporate Training — Part One: Identify the Stakeholders

Get it right first time by talking to the right people

Three Minute Train the Trainer Series #20

Non-trainers view a training course as a magic pill that will fix all the issues in their team.

Poor performance? Training will knock them into shape.

Rule breaking? A course will sort them out.

Slow to learn? Training will help them.

And that’s just individual training. When it comes to training large numbers of employees, it’s even worse.

In that case you’ll be asked to develop and deliver a training course that will fix everything, everywhere, all at once.

But how do you develop a course? Specifically, how do you create a large-scale training program that does what it’s supposed to?

This is an awful lot of stakeholders, but don’t panic. You don’t have to consult with them immediately just because an exec has requested training in the breakroom over a sausage roll and a cup of Earl Grey.

As someone who’s created various large-scale training interventions (posh word for courses), I can emphatically say it’s much easier when you have a system.

For a start, it forces everyone to agree on the training, who will go, and whose budget will pay for it.

I learned to do this the hard way. After spending blood, sweat, and tears developing a course on the say-so of an executive, I’d be confronted by the following:

“Why haven’t you covered xyz?”

“It’s great but we can’t run it this year.”

“Who authorized this? There’s no budget for the roll out.”

To ensure that never happened again, I wrote a process for making large-scale training happen.

Part of that process is identifying the stakeholders.

Who are the stakeholders and why do you need them?

Stakeholders is just a fancy word for who is involved, so remember to include those further down in the pecking order as well as the execs.

Let’s imagine the H&S team approaches you to develop an extensive all-singing, all-dancing course on slips, trips & falls and manual handling for all the warehouse staff.

It will be an in-person course, and you will work with an SME (Subject Matter Expert) for the content, but you will manage the project.

If the training is signed off to go ahead, the stakeholders could be any of the following.

The H&S Manager: The H&S Manager will sign off the training to ensure the H&S bits are correct and provide the subject matter expert to work with you.

The H&S Manager will also be all over any legislative, industry, or audit requirements, and they’ll likely have a target for reducing slips & trips, and falls within the organization.

The P&C Manager: Usually, your boss so needs to be kept in the loop, especially if the project will take a significant amount of your time.

Your boss will balance your other responsibilities with the time commitment that a large-scale rollout will require and decide whether it’s high enough up the priority list for you to be released.

The COO: The people to be trained report directly or indirectly to the Chief Ops Officer, so they need to be aware of the scope of the training and agree to it.

Also, the COO will be all over what other projects are happening, so will have a high-level idea of when the warehouse staff can attend. It’s no good planning training if no one can do it.

You’ll also be liaising with them about what training the supervisors and managers of the trainees will get — they need to know what’s going on, but how much training content do they need? You can hash this out with the COO.

The COO can also chip in around the best days and times of day to plan the training and how many staff can be released for training at one time.

Line Managers of the trainees: You’ll need to involve a couple of the direct supervisors of the trainees plus a couple of line managers between them and the COO.

These managers will have a much better idea of what happens in the warehouse daily and the attitude of the trainees towards the training.

Line managers can give you a heads-up about the trainees’ literacy, numeracy, and computer literacy and any likely issues around attendance.

The H&S SME: This person will work with you to provide the course content and will likely be co-presenting.

The project will take a significant investment of time, so include the SME from the beginning.

Internal Auditors: If your organization has audits, whoever is responsible for passing the audits must know about any planned training, especially H&S training.

Your organization must comply with national and state legislation and industry standards. There may be audit recommendations to be included in the training.

Auditors are also handy to advise what training records you’ll need to keep, whether that is a sign-off sheet or an assessment. Auditors are especially handy to back you up when everyone else is trying to vote for no assessments. If there isn’t an assessment, it’s not training.

Rosters: If you are a 24/7 operation, your rosters team can advise on how many staff can be released and when. Rosters are in the best position to know who’s booked holidays and the usual rates of sickness. For example, if a lot of people tend to go sick on a Monday, your trainees will be pulled out of the training to cover.

Payroll: Depending on whether any overtime is involved, you may or may not need payroll. Any training has a cost because of the wages of the staff attending. If you are asking staff to stay late, attend out of hours or roll out the training on a public holiday, payroll needs to know.

Payroll will also prevent over-enthusiastic line managers from telling staff they will be paid in a way that doesn’t comply with legislation or a way that the payroll system can’t cope with.

Finance: Someone needs to pay for all this training. There are the wages for a start, plus printing if there are paper workbooks, lunches, morning teas, and possibly hotel rooms and flights if people have to travel. Finance will have to sign all this off.

Marketing & Comms: You want people to be enthusiastic about the training, and a large-scale training initiative needs to be advertised so people know why they are going. Your comms team can come up with a plan to help you comprising of texts, emails, information on the intranet,

The Union or Staff Representatives: Any big training rollout will make waves, so you must get the union or staff reps on side. They need to know why you are doing the training and what it means for the trainees.

For example, will it involve extra work or responsibilities? If you get the input of the staff reps and get them to advocate for the training, it will help.

IT: Even if this is bog-standard face-to-face training with no online component, you’ll need to let IT know unless it’s offsite. You’ll need IT help if the projector or screens fail to work, the internet plays up, or IT gremlins get into your laptop.

If there is an online component, you’ll need to scope out how that will be released, whether the trainees and stakeholders have passwords and devices to access it.

The Bid Team (if there is one): If you are an organization that bids for new work or contracts, the Bid Team will want to know what training is in the offing.

If the training upskills staff, satisfies regulations, or makes you into a leader in a specialized area (especially if the training might win an award), the Bid Team might be interested.

Don’t Panic

This is an awful lot of stakeholders, but don’t panic. You don’t have to consult with them immediately just because an exec has requested training in the breakroom over a sausage roll and a cup of Earl Grey.

Firstly, check out what the H&S Manager (or whoever asked for the training) wants, get a rough scope, and then run it by the P&C Manager and COO.

If it looks like it will go ahead, you’ll have to draw up a proposal including costs, where and when the training will happen, what’s in it, and how it will be deployed.

That’s why you need the other stakeholders to give you the input.

You may not need as many stakeholders as I’ve listed but check out whether you do by asking.

It’s far better to keep people in the loop that do a lot of work on a training course that never sees the light of day because it can’t be rolled out because of poor logistical problems or no budget.

I hope this helps; any questions let me know in the comments :-)

I write about leadership & training, and I’ve designed The New Leader’s Starter Kit to help leaders better communicate with their teams. Get your free copy here — The New Leader’s Starter Kit takes you through how to run One-to-Ones and Constructive Feedback sessions & develop effective listening skills — a printable one-to-one form, feedback form and listening skills checklist included.