Choosing your training provider should be a very personal experience for your firm. After all, they have to be the right fit and able to meet your needs by offering training from Professional Skills Courses (PSC) to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and more. However, after making this careful selection, have you considered that you should be continuously reviewing your training providers and challenging them to ensure that they remain the most suitable selection? At Altior, we believe you should be continuously looking forward, understanding your firm’s goals and requirements for the future, and so should you training provider. This is why for our blog this week; we’re discussing ways in which you can challenge your providers and why you shouldn’t simply settle for what you know.
Consider diversity
In order to truly disrupt working practices and nurture positive change in your firm, diversity can be an incredibly useful tool. Although the term can be applied to a variety of areas within your firm, in this instance we mean the diversity of thought, delivered to you by trainers across the industry with varying backgrounds and levels of professional experience. This can help to open your team up to innovative ideas that may have previously been overlooked or not even brought to the table. Doing so has proved effective in many professional environments. For example, Business Insider previously reported on a study by Deloitte which found that diversity of thought can help to boost innovation and creative problem-solving, all of which can have a positive impact on a firm’s bottom line. So, we recommend you get to know your trainers a little better and embrace the diversity they can bring.
Future proof training
As a firm, you’ll always be looking to the future to understand how you can continue to be at the forefront of your industry and achieve optimum results for your business and your clients. To do this, you’ll need a training provider which you can rely on to help futureproof careers in the legal field. You should therefore consider how your provider is responding to new market trends or regulations, and how they are meeting business demands, such as supplying new courses where there is a need. The legal industry is continuously evolving, with great changes being implemented in the past five years alone, and a new focus on the integration of technology in law, with training in this area set to become vital in coming years.
Evaluate your training
Regardless of what courses your team undertakes, evaluation should be ongoing. In 2008, the UK collectively spent over £38 billion on training and that figure has continued to rise in recent years, with companies spending a national average of £300 on training per employee in 2018. The UK L&D Report 2018 highlighted that 94% of best performers surveyed said that learning and development is critical to success and helped to reduce staff turnover due to increased satisfaction, but we would argue that quality of training also directly correlates to this. Studies such as this are crucial for measuring success but the impact of development programmes should also be evaluated within your firm with a focus on understanding the effect of training on employee satisfaction and your firm’s bottom line. Where possible, you should work with your training provider to implement measurement metrics or lines of feedback before outlining the next phase of development with individuals in your team to ensure positive results. Creating programmes with your training provider that are flexible enough to build in reflection and continuous development after each course is vital to ensure that you get the very best from each course that is delivered.
To be truly pioneering in your industry and to ensure that your business provides a forward-thinking culture, you should be continuously reviewing your service providers to understand if they are effectively meeting your needs. If you already have a chosen training provider in place, do not rest on your laurels or let them rest on theirs – they should be challenged regularly to help you understand how they are enhancing development needs with your firm in mind. At Altior, we’re always looking to innovate our service and nurture an experience-led culture across our business by making continuous improvements and embracing a personal and practical approach to meeting our clients’ needs. So, if you’d like to speak to a member of our team about our upcoming courses or to enquire about how we can help you tackle any bespoke training needs you may have within your firm, contact us today on 02920 451 000 or email us at: infoaltior@barbri.com