Learning leaders today face entirely different challenges than they did six years ago. Limited budget, smaller teams, faster timelines … there’s a lot of pressure and a lot at stake. But even if you work with a corporate training partner to help fill the gaps in your learning and development (L&D) needs, how do you ensure you’re getting the most out of your investment? How can you build the case for stakeholders to prove to them that this investment is worthwhile?
The truth is, when it comes to a partner, don’t settle. Expect more from the collaboration than a quick fix or a temporary solution. A good partner will work with you to create a custom solution that’s just right for your organization — and to put together the evidence that will prove to key decision-makers that it will come with lasting results.
When choosing a partner, it’s important to:
- Define your ideal future state
- Identify your partner’s ideal traits
- Look for alignment in how your partner’s capabilities contribute to achieving your goals
Although the first and third steps will be entirely unique to your situation, here are some common traits you may want to look for when thinking of your ideal partnership.
Industry Experience
Knowledge of your industry is a must for any good partner. They should understand the challenges you face — as well as come prepared with proven strategies for turning those challenges into opportunities to set your organization apart from the competition. Look for a partner that has a history of successful training programs for businesses similar to your own, not only in industry but also in structure and size.
Even more, a partner that understands your industry has an advantage in working with content and terminology that may otherwise be complex or difficult for an outside source to understand. This can help reduce any costs associated with getting your partner up to speed on what your learners need and how your learners may learn best.
Cultural Fit
A partner that shares your culture and values will be more invested in seeing you succeed and will want to be involved in that process. Learners will also be more likely to resonate with content and see themselves in it if it’s created with them in mind.
During early collaboration, a good partner will work with you to understand exactly what your organization needs, what’s important to your stakeholders and learners and the type of outcomes the solution needs to achieve to contribute to culture and demonstrate success.
Multimodal Expertise
Sometimes, it’s hard to know exactly what you need from a learning program until you get started. Other times, you already have a vision of what needs to happen, but the path to get there may require specific modalities or skills to bring it to life.
A good partner possesses:
- Instructional design expertise to ensure the solution is engaging and customizable to learners’ needs, as well as compatible with your organization’s available infrastructure.
- Proficiency in multiple modalities, such as instructor-led training, web-based training, immersive simulations and mentorship or coaching.
- A technical touch to leverage modern innovations, such as AI, enhanced gamification and other tools to increase the effectiveness of the experience, improve accessibility, and ensure everything works within your LMS or preferred delivery system.
- Adaptability that allows teams to be flexible in keeping up with your organization’s needs as they change based on economic conditions, stakeholder decisions, newly uncovered information or any other need that can alter an initiative’s original plan.
- Scalability that allows training to be delivered across multiple locations, whether it’s inside the US or on a global scale and in multiple languages, as well as the capacity to work on multiple projects or phases of your project concurrently as needed.
Meaningful Measurement and Evaluation Strategies
Many leaders struggle to gather the right data — they either get too much and it becomes difficult to sort through, or they don’t get enough and aren’t able to effectively prove the value of an L&D investment to other leaders or business units.
But a good partner will set you up for success with meaningful strategies early on in the process, rather than scrambling to gather data at the end. They’ll help set benchmarks to compare the results of your initiative over time in ways that directly align with the goals you need to achieve. Moreover, they can help you strategize the best ways to collect only the data you’ll need through technology, in-person observations and other human-centered metrics to prove that performance has seen a positive shift toward meeting those goals.
Measurement and evaluation, when done right, goes beyond proving the value of an investment, as it can also inform next steps to take to maintain momentum and evolve your learning program over time to ensure it remains relevant, impactful and up to date with the latest information for your industry.
Long-Standing Support and Transparent Communication
When the time comes to take on the next initiative, or improve the one you’ve recently rolled out, it can be costly to bring on a new partner that isn’t familiar with the work that’s already been done. A good partner sticks with you through each phase and is dedicated to supporting your growth throughout the life of your relationship.
This support can look different from organization to organization. What matters most is that your partner works with you to find the type of support you need over the coming months — and they’re transparent about their own resources, pricing and schedule to ensure you receive the attention you need, when you need it, without any unexpected conflicts.
A Proven Track Record of Success
Finally, it helps to evaluate a partner based on their other relationships. Look for references, reviews or other testimonials from clients who have actually worked with the custom corporate training partners at the top of your list. Understand what worked well in the relationship and where there were potential pain points to better envision the type of results you can expect from a partnership with them.
The Final Vision: A Model for Your Best Partner
Companies with a strong reputation and a track record of success in projects with similar needs to your own usually prove to be the best fit, but in your research, you may also discover other companies that have a smaller portfolio but exceptional service. What’s most important is finding a partner that’s the perfect fit for you — they meet the needs of your ideal future state, they carry your ideal traits, and their capabilities contribute to achieving your goals for long-term shared success.
