Source Three: Nonprofessional (Peer)/Internal Trainers and Educators
Smaller organizations have always had to rely on employees who occasionally offer training or education services, while also serving some other function, most of the time, in the organization. A senior administrator with fifteen years of experience in a small manufacturing firm might offer a two-day program for new managers in his organization regarding supervision and delegation. A member of the accounting department might similarly offer a four-hour session on budgeting, while the affirmative action officer presents a series of two-hour luncheon seminars on the ten steps in hiring a new employee or five ways to handle difficult employees. This third source of expertise is indispensable to the small organization primarily because it is affordable. No permanent members of the HR staff are required, nor does the organization have to pay high salaries to professional trainers and educators with advantaged degrees.
In recent years, many large and small organizations have discovered that there are advantages associated with this third source—other than just cost. The skill and knowledge of professional trainers and educators (Source Two) is valuable in any organization. These men and women can provide the broad perspectives and neutrality that is usually associated with external trainers and educators (Source One). There are many drawbacks, however, in relying on professional HR staff members. They often lack credibility and the resources they offer might not be very applicable. The professional staff members in a human resource development department often lose track of organizational realities. Typically, these men and women have spent many years in the training and education business. As a result, they have forgotten what it takes to actually administer a department or grapple with the political forces operating in the building of a program budget.
In many cases, members of a professional development staff have never actually worked in any job other than training and education. They may have been hired straight out of an MBA program and have spent their entire professional career mouthing words they heard or read in their graduate program. They are clones of business school professors who have minimal real world experience and who offer words of wisdom that outdated, impractical or geared to very different kinds of organizations. Alternatively, the trainer served for ten years as a high school literature instructor and was hired five years ago because of her experience as a teacher and curriculum designer. She doesn’t know much about business practices but does know how to write an educational objective and facilitate a classroom discussion.
