Companies are often wary of employing freelance trainers when setting up a new project or contemplating a 'roll out' operation or ‘change' scenario. There are however distinct advantages to using freelance as against permanent resources, and some of these are outlined as follows.

1. Financial Although initial costs (hourly/daily rate) of freelance trainers may seem expensive, this has to be set against fact that there are no costs of in house benefit packages, no pensions commitment, no payment for holidays or sick time etc. Also, cost is fixed, purely for term of contract, and can be budgeted into overall project. Once project (and contract) are completed, there are no ongoing employment costs or costs of redundancy etc.

2. Skills Often a client does not have requisite expert skills in house that are required to produce training quickly and effectively for a new project or roll out. It is often more cost effective to employ a freelancer who has these skills, than waiting for existing employees to gain sufficient depth of knowledge and expertise.

However, as part of freelance contract, client should arrange that freelancer transfer those skills required to permanent employees for ongoing maintenance of project after contract has finished.

3. Focus on project Permanent employees often have their own personal priorities. They are concerned with day to day 'office politics', enhancing their career and promotion prospects etc. Combine this with time spent on company activities, such as meetings etc. and in most companies actual applied working time of average employee is only about 50% of their time at work.

Freelance workers have no interest in company politics, career chasing, internal meetings etc. and tend to focus 100% on project they are working on. The freelancer has a fixed deadline, i.e. end date of contract and will normally always ensure that work is completed to project milestones.

4. Commitment A freelancer is only as good as their last project. They tend to gain employment mostly by referral and it is in their interest therefore, to always do as good a job as possible on each project. There is no advantage to freelancer in spinning out project unnecessarily, as this would reflect on future opportunities.

This means that you tend to get 100% commitment throughout project, as a freelancer will tend to avoid all distractions and try to complete project ahead of milestones where possible. After all, there is normally no 'overtime' pay for freelancer and therefore no advantage in making work last any longer than necessary.

Extensive research conducted by American Society for Testing and Development (ASTD) discovered direct training expenditures were 2% of payroll costs with another 10% of more in indirect costs. Daniel Goleman author of Working with Emotional Intelligence estimated that in 1999, U.S. companies spent $30 billion in emotional intelligence training focusing on leadership development. With all of this interest and dollars being invested in training and development for improved leadership, possibly now is time to assess your leadership development.

The following evaluation is for you, your manager or your organization to determine effectiveness of current leadership development initiatives within your company. After taking this quick assessment, some thoughts and questions to consider have been provided to help you truly discover how to secure leadership development results that you desire and more importantly require in today’s highly competitive global business market.

1. Are learning engagements training (learning a new skill) or development (enhancing a current skill set to improve already learned skill)?  Training Development

2. Is there a minimum of 50 hours of training or development per year devoted to development of necessary skills, knowledge, attitudes and habits necessary to become a world class organization?  No Yes

3. Is training or development offered on a weekly or biweekly basis providing ongoing opportunities for application and feedback?  No Yes

4. Is training or development offered on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis where learning engagements exceed 6 hours per day without opportunities for application and feedback between learning engagements?  No Yes

5. Is training or development aligned with current organizational goals and supported from top down by CEO and executive committee?  No Yes

6. Is training or development based upon “core” competencies?  No Yes

7. If training or development is based upon “core” competencies, how many times have you had to repeat training?  None 1 time 2 times 3 times 4 times+

8. Is training or development based upon “desired” results?  No Yes

9. If training or development is based upon “desired” results, how many times have you had to repeat training or development?  None 1 time 2 times 3 times 4 times+

10. Is training or development based upon weaknesses or upon strengths of each individual within organization?  Weaknesses Strengths

Thoughts and Questions for Your Consideration

Now, that you have completed this straightforward assessment, following thoughts and questions are designed to help you determine effectiveness of your current leadership training or development.

1. Are learning engagements training (learning a new skill) or development (enhancing a current skill set to improve that already learned skill)?  Training Development

If answer was training and objective is to learn a new skill, you are right on target! However, if your people already possess skills, then learning needs to focus on development. Development goes beyond training and works to build What’s In It For Me (WIIFM) leading to What’s In It For Us (WIIFU).

2. Is there a minimum of 50 hours of training or development per year devoted to development of necessary skills, knowledge, attitudes and habits necessary to become a world class organization?  No Yes