3 Key Concerns and Their Solutions

Since doing training part-time in 1996, and full-time since May 2001, I realize that there are 3 main concerns of companies when they want to invest in training:

1. Time In today's lean structure, companies cannot afford to release their staff to go away for a few days course. Often, the staff don't want to attend training because they will need to sacrifice their personal time to catch up on work fallen behind when they are away attending the long training. If the training is conducted at night or Saturdays, they do not like it as this will interfere with their family or social life.

2. Relevance Many feel that the training providers out there are too academic. Many use complex theories and jargons and some are conducted by westerners that many find hard to catch what they say. Worse of all, there are few question-and-answer opportunities and case studies that allow for practical application. Also, almost none trainers provide coaching (i.e. allow trainees to ask any question outside the lesson). That's why many find training are good for 'spending the budget' but see little return on their investment.

3. Application This has to be the biggest obstacle to training. Many told me that there is no way for the employer to check if the staff is applying the lessons learnt from training. This is because the trainees will not see the trainer after the training, so how is the trainer going to check if there is application?

Here come our solutions to the above key concerns:

1. Time - our training are only half-day of 3 hours, so there is no need to be away for a few days in a row. They are done during office hours so no impact on personal life. In fact, like what George Lam, our coachee that attended a program in May, said, "I look forward to every Wednesday morning and get more things done because I know I have to be out for training". So our training actually end up giving people more time instead!

2. Relevance - Our training are non-academic, but based on real-life issues gathered from consulting and coaching experiences with our clients. We were part of the network of over 957 business coaches worldwide (Action International) that have coached over 41,751 individuals in 26 countries since 1993.

We simplify complex theories into easy templates that can be used by anyone as they are easy to remember. Like '5 Ways to Be High Profit Employee', and '16 Cylinders of High Performance'.

Our trainers are not from the academic but from over 67 years of working experience, including over 10 years of consulting and coaching experience. Like Victor Koh, a trainer who have 35 years of experience, including director of an MNC.

Besides, our programs have a practical application in every lesson. E.g in the lesson on leadership, goal setting is taught and our trainers require the trainees to complete their goal sheet and 'pass up' to us in the following week.

How do we get people to 'pass up' their homework? This is because our training are conducted over 4 weeks, once a week, and thus there is a checking system for 4 weeks to ensure application.

** Bonus: All our programs come with personal one-to-one coaching (via email or phone) that to-date, over 71 people have made use of this. There is no charge for this, and it can be done during or after the class.

3. Application - Our trainers see the trainees every week for 4 weeks, and there is follow-up for 4 weeks! Thus there will definitely be application. Since April 2005, our weekly group coaching programs have trained over 374 people, including CEOs, GMs, Managers, Sales Directors, Executives, Production Assistants etc and even include 2 Entrepreneurs that have won awards before.

We have conducted 9 programs including "Dynamic Business Coaching", "How to Be a Better Manager", "Achieving Sales Excellence", "Winning Sales Coaching", "How to Be a High Performance Employee", "Workplace Excellence", "Pulling People Towards High Performance", "Be an Asset to Your Company", "Effective Executive Coaching" and "Sales Success Action".