Profile of VET organisation
Name of organization: Laatukeskus Excellence Finland
Country: Finland
e-mail: [email protected]
Type of VET institute: Further education and training
Good practice title
Bi-annual trainer meeting
Baseline / problem
Our organization uses a lot of external trainers. Of our approximately 30 trainers, only 5 are on the payroll. The rest are external trainers who work for us as entrepreneurs – we buy their services.
With this wide variety of trainers from many different backgrounds we noticed there was quite a lot of variation in multiple things, such as: training materials, training style, dressing style and others. The external trainers didn’t really know each other either and since there wasn’t any activity other than “come in and teach” the sense of community wasn’t as strong as it could be.
Good practice: (Measures, instruments, criteria, indicators)
Our good practice for this was to organize a bi-annual trainer’s meeting. It is organized by the director of training and all trainers (on payroll & external) are invited. The meeting lasts between 3 and 5 hours and the agenda is different each time. There are usually three key elements to a meeting:
- Greetings from us to all trainers, what is new and what is happening
- Some aspect where the trainers brainstorm or come up with new approaches
- Have some good food and get to know each other
It is important for us that when the trainers come and visit us there is always something we can give them. Because normally when they visit, they are the teachers. But for these meetings, we would like the situation to be reversed. So, what we usually give them is new knowledge, tools or knowhow. In this way we are also improving the trainers’ capabilities.
So this way, we solve common problems and discuss common issues. We foster a sense of community and create connections. And teach and learn a little as well.
Problems and constraints encountered and solutions found:
Some of the trainers are quite busy being the entrepreneurs they are. It is important to set the date and communicate about it as early as possible. Not every trainer can participate every time and that is fine, but it is still worth it to come up with as good agenda for the meeting as possible to encourage participation.