Building an Internal Trainer Pool: Making Organisational Knowledge Transferable

A significant share of corporate training budgets is allocated to externally sourced programmes. At the same time, the technical knowledge, process experience and record of past errors accumulated within those same organisations over the years sits with a small number of individuals. The transfer of this knowledge usually takes place in an unstructured way, within the daily flow of work. When a person leaves the organisation or changes role, the knowledge that was never transferred leaves with them.

An internal trainer pool is a structure that does not leave this transfer to chance. It covers selecting a portion of the organisation's knowledge holders against defined criteria, preparing them in terms of training delivery capability, converting content into a standard format and establishing a system that makes the assignment sustainable. In this respect it is not a training activity but an HR system.

What an Internal Trainer Pool Delivers for the Organisation

The first function of the pool is to make organisation-specific knowledge transferable. External trainers can convey the general framework of a subject with considerable strength; what they cannot convey is the organisation's own process steps, system screens, the particular demands of its customer segments and how past errors were resolved. This type of knowledge can only come from inside. Internal and external training are not alternatives to one another but two separate channels serving different types of knowledge.

The second function is the acceleration of onboarding processes. The time a new joiner needs to learn the work depends largely on who explains it to them and how systematically. When this task is left undefined, it falls to the busiest person on the team. Once the pool is established, it is clear which subject will be delivered by whom and with what content.

The third function is that it creates a development area for the employee given the assignment. Structuring a subject to the point where it can be taught requires a different kind of effort from applying that subject. Presentation skills, handling questions and being able to hold a room are directly useful for employees who will move into managerial roles later on.

The situations in which the pool is meaningful are limited. Subjects that are delivered repeatedly to a large number of employees, that are specific to the organisation and weighted towards process knowledge are suitable for internal trainers. For low-frequency subjects, those involving certification, or those carrying potential for internal conflict, an external trainer is preferred.

Selection Criteria

The first decision determining the quality of the pool is how clearly the selection criteria are defined. The most frequently encountered error is treating the most experienced person on a subject as an internal trainer automatically. Technical depth is a necessary condition, but not sufficient on its own.

Five dimensions are assessed in selection:

1.   Command of the subject,

2.   Ability to convey,

3.   Level of acceptance within the organisation,

4.   Willingness,

5.   Availability of time.

Where the assignment does not involve willingness, content preparation is frequently observed to falter. When manager nomination is used on its own to identify candidates, the pool tends to concentrate in particular departments. Outputs from performance and competency assessment, together with an internal call for voluntary applications, can be added to this. On how competency data is used in this selection, the framework in our article How Is Competency Assessment Conducted? Methods and Implementation Steps offers a directly applicable basis.

Holding at least two trainers for every critical subject heading matters for continuity during periods of leave and departures. A subject heading that depends on a single trainer is the risk that existed before the pool was built, under a different name.

The Preparation Programme and the Content Standard

The stage following selection is the preparation of the internal trainer. Skipping this stage is the point at which attempts to build a pool most often stall. The preparation programme does not teach technical knowledge; it teaches how to convert that knowledge into a transferable structure.

The components of the programme generally consist of the following headings:

•     Train the trainer: Adult learning principles, session flow design, managing questions and answers, and difficult participant situations.

•     Content development support: Setting the subject out as a written design with learning objectives, a time plan and assessment questions.

•     Standard material template: Corporate presentation template, participant worksheet and trainer note format.

•     Observed trial session: A pilot delivery with a small group followed by structured feedback.

•     Senior trainer accompaniment: Delivering the first live session under supervision, followed by a review discussion.

The most neglected of these components is the content standard. Where no standard template is used, each trainer produces their own format; content continues to depend on the individual, and when that trainer leaves, the material cannot be used by anyone else. Storing content in the corporate archive with its update date and content owner is what makes the system durable.

In practice the balance is observed to settle at around two-thirds of the content being fixed, with the remainder left open to the trainer's initiative.

Sustainability and Measurement

A proportion of the pools that are established lose their function after the first year. The underlying reason is that internal training duty is not included in the job description or in workload planning. When delivering training is added on top of the normal job, training becomes the first item sacrificed during busy periods. For sustainability, the assignment needs a defined share of time in the annual work plan and a corresponding weight in performance assessment.

The second element is recognition. Certification, making the internal trainer title visible in internal communication and priority access to development programmes are among the methods that are seen to work in practice.

The third element is keeping content current. Each piece of content is assigned an owner and a review cycle; a review carried out at least once a year preserves the credibility of the pool.

On the measurement side, four indicators can be drawn on: coverage rate, utilisation rate, participant evaluation and learning outcome. Participant satisfaction should not be treated as sufficient on its own; the satisfaction score is strongly related to the trainer's delivery style and does not show whether the content has been reflected in the work.

An internal trainer pool is a system design that defines under what conditions, by whom and to what standard knowledge inside the organisation will be transferred. When one of the components is left out, the pool often remains no more than a list of names. To see where this structure sits within the organisation's training architecture, you may review our training and development programmes.

At Kaan Böke Management Consultancy, we deliver strategic and applicable solutions with 35+ years of corporate experience and 25+ years of C-level leadership perspective. To establish an internal trainer pool in your organisation, you may get in touch with us.