Beware the term "Bespoke"

The days of the standard, off-the-shelf training are numbered. Companies increasingly require personalised solutions that offer more value for money. Terms like ‘custom’, ‘tailored’ or ‘bespoke’ are no longer reserved for buying suits or curtains, and instead are bandied around the corporate world with the exciting lure of a service guaranteed to promote a company to success.

Indeed, a well-designed, bespoke training course can do wonders for a business, producing a significant return on investment (ROI) and contented employees. However, the apparent necessity for any forward-thinking and innovative training provider to offer a customer focused training service seems to have led to a dubious array of interpretations of the ‘bespoke’ concept, and some consequently questionable ‘tailor-made’ services.

Allowing the client to specify the date of the course, the duration and to select specific modules from a programme schedule is certainly a step in the right direction, but is not nearly enough to merit the term ‘bespoke’. Then there’s the idea of providing ‘best-fit’ trainers, modules or schedule; undoubtedly a worthy attempt by the training provider to meet their client’s needs, but in these times of austerity and value for money is ‘best-fit’ really sufficient? At the other end of the scale are the organisations who promote their ‘personalised service’ so much that it seems they expect the client to design and write their own programme, providing little help and guidance along the way. No one could accuse the programme of not being bespoke, but one could certainly question the tactics used to create it and the reasons for using an external supplier.

The next level in personalisation appears to be the term “tailored” which seems to be used interchangeably with “bespoke” but is in fact quite different. A tailored service in corporate consultancy involves the “tailoring” of an existing programme to reflect the unique target group and replacing “{enter company name here}” with the name of the new client so that they feel it is unique to them. In reality this programme will be used in one form or another for a number of companies in various industries and for various levels of seniority. Again, this is a move in the right direction to increase value-add as it is at least tailored to the target audience, but it is still not “bespoke”.

So what do we mean by “bespoke”?

To us, bespoke training services are those that are created and crafted by working collaboratively with a client, for a clearly defined target population within the organisation, for a particular purpose, and to meet specific individual, group and business development needs. A key indicator of successful, bespoke training, can be identified by the positive outcomes reflected in the four levels that Kirkpatrick (2005) identified to evaluate the results or impact of training, namely to

1.Evaluate the reaction of the participants (the well-known ‘happy sheets’)

2. Evaluate the learning to test whether the learning is retained

3. Evaluate the changes in behaviour as a result of attending the training and finally,

4. Evaluate the results back at work

For example, SML designed, developed and delivered a bespoke ‘Developing you Leadership Potential Programme’ for high potential associates for a global investment bank. We ran two cohorts each year for 5 years, and for each cohort our consultants held discussions with each delegate and their line manager. The reason for this was to understand exactly what each delegate’s development areas were and to agree success criteria with their manager. Once these meetings had been completed, our consultants then designed, from scratch, a unique set of modules for that cohort which focussed on their specific development areas as a group. Each module was facilitated by an experienced, specialist consultant, thereby matching both module content and the experience level and industry of the cohort.

In terms of Kirkpatrick’s model of training evaluation, this meant that we were able to measure ROI not just in terms of traditional reaction or “happy sheets” from participants (level one), but also through follow-up 2:1 meetings with the participants and their manager to evaluate learning, behaviour and results of the programme (levels two, three and four) back at work.

References
Kirkpatrick, D.L. (2005). Evaluating training programmes: The four levels (Third Edition). Williston, VT: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

31-Oct-2011 | Industry news

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