Parkin Space: Training - Profession or Occupation?
Do you consider yourself a training professional, and if so, what constitutes that term "professional"? Godfrey Parkin maintains that training has a long way to go before it can hold its own with professions like law and medicine, but he for one is willing to try.
Whenever I use the terms “training profession” or “training professionals” I find myself wanting to explain. I use those labels as an expedient shortcut to describe those involved in facilitating corporate learning, be they trainers, managers, instructional designers, or consultants. But I am not comfortable with all of the implications of the word “professional.”
The debate as to whether or not trainers or instructional designers are really professionals raises its head from time to time, and while some see it as irrelevant semantics, many get rather passionate about the subject.
To some, if you make your living from it and you are pretty good at what you do, you can wear the label of professional with pride. To them, professionalism is a state of mind, an attitude to achieving results, quality and customer satisfaction that raises one above the hacks, charlatans and well-meaning-but-inept people that so often infiltrate the field.
To the purists, a profession involves lengthy academic education, proven expertise in practice, and formal accreditation by an acknowledged association of your peers. It may also involve being licensed via some formal, non-trivial process, adherence to a set of standards, behaviours and ethics, and a commitment to a continuous education process that keeps your license current. Typically, a profession has a body of peers that oversees the interests and the reputation of its members. When you tell a doctor, a lawyer, or an accountant that you are a professional, this is what they expect to be behind your assertion.
True, trainer certification is available from various vendors, but passing such exams is hardly a guarantee of any breadth or depth of competence. I know many people who call themselves trainers or instructional designers who are extensively certified but incompetent, and many who are outstanding in their roles but have no formal qualification behind them. Most people in the field fall somewhere in the middle.
Getting a certification may help you get a job interview, if that is one of the filters employers use to short-list applicants. There is certainly no harm in taking a certification program such as the CTP or CeLP or the CPLP that is provided by the American Society for Training and Development, particularly if you are relatively new to the field. But I am not a great believer in the value of formal certification processes, largely because those that I have seen (or, in moments of weakness, have been involved in creating) are trivial – commercial opportunism thinly disguised as rigorous training and evaluation.
So, by the empirical standards of the purists, I fail the professionalism test. But (dammit) I am a professional – I have the experience, knowledge, reputation, competence, body of work, attitudes and integrity that collectively make me very comfortable with that label. The key question, however, is this: if the field in which you operate is not a profession, how can you call yourself a professional?
I don’t think that there is much question that training is not (yet) a profession, simply because it does not have the formal underpinnings of other professions. Training industry bodies, where they exist, do not fulfil the same role as say the General Medical Council or the Legal Bar. For that matter, there is no industry association, at least not one that has an omnipotent purview that even approaches those in the medical or legal fields. Training associations are more akin to trade associations, providing primarily the ability to network and in turn exploiting their internal market to sell publications, courses and conferences.
There is much apathetic complaining about training associations treating training as an occupation or vocation and failing to elevate the field as a profession. But it is the members themselves, the trainers, instructional designers, and managers who should determine how their representative body behaves, instead of complaining impotently about their association as though it were an independent entity. (There are parallels here with the way trainers view the senior management of their companies – we yearn for “a seat at the table” without ever expecting to have to make that happen ourselves.)
We need to stand up and make a little noise. We need a really “professional” certification process, involving education, training, experience, referrals, rigorous testing of knowledge and performance, managed by a truly dynamic and credible training association. In addition to being expensive, it would be elitist and exclusionary, both politically incorrect, but that does not seem to phase doctors or accountants. I would be willing to get involved in creating something like that, and in promoting it.
Til that happens, you can keep your token certifications. I’m happy to be a self-satisfied self-certified professional.
Martha Whipple , 07 February 2007 @ 20:47 PM Why so negative?
Hello, I'm new to this site, and I'm sure you have a lot of knowledge in the training field Mr. Parkin, I just don't understand why the majority of your articles have such a negative undertone.
Are you here to support the world of training or are you here to knock it down?
Thanks, and for the record, I don't need an advanced doctorate degree to consider myself a professional.
Juliet LeFevre , 30 November 2005 @ 09:40 AM Worthless....
Now that you can buy yourself into the CIPD as an affiliate without qualifications, for the same price as a someone who has sat exams, the credibility of the professionalism (and the CIPD) is rendered meaningless. You get the same benefits without the need to study. Per-lease dont try and kid me this elevates trainers or in some way acts in our interests.
Garry Platt , 28 November 2005 @ 08:30 AM Experience, what experience?
The interesting thing about experience Vs qualifications is that both can mean nothing.
A qualification can mean that you have acquired a temporary ability to memorise and recall particular rafts of knowledge and for a short period of time demonstrate a skill to a required level of effectiveness. However, 6 months later that same knowledge could well have dissipated and the application of those skills so diligently employed during assessment abandoned and forgotten once the individual has returned to the workplace.
On the other hand so much stock seems to be placed in the ‘experience’ of the individual but alas this is equally as flawed and problematic. There are people who will reel of pages of experience quoting prestigious clients and projects they were involved in, quite whether that experience was positive and indeed productive cannot be confirmed unless time is taken to pursue the claims and follow the assertions up. I have also known people who claim to have twenty years experience in the business. In reality the only immediate reaction to this can be ‘so what’? As this industry moves forward what is the use of experience which is probably out of date and useless and potentially even baggage which needs to be shed? And what counts as experience? Twenty years experience might in fact be one months experience repeated 12 times a year for twenty years, what value is that? Then of course there are the people who have been in training little more then ten minutes but can list an entire constellation of skills and experience. The ‘experiences’ might have lasted 15 minutes and the skills practised one Saturday afternoon, well you get the picture.
If you want a ‘professional’ undertaking your trainer, perhaps an amalgam of the two factors referenced above; qualifications and experience might not be a bad thing and also a healthy inspection of past work which goes beyond just what the trainer tells you.
Nik Kellingley , 23 November 2005 @ 17:22 PM Did I miss the point here?
I thought Godfrey was being a little tongue in cheek and actually promoting the value of "self certification" of one's own ability rather than actually creating another unnecessary body that can claim to be the only one representative of the profession.
There is a chartered body (the CIPD) who theoretically represent training - the fact that they are no darned good at it is the fault of the training profession who let the HR professionals squeeze us out and take over the agenda.
There are other industry bodies who may carry some weight with a handful of employers but by and large their accreditations don't appear in any of the job adverts I've seen.
There are a dozen additional worthless pieces of paper generated by dozens of UK institutions all claiming to certify a trainer's prowess.
But... surely when it really comes down to it - the only people who can make a judgement are your clients/employers and your trainees following a proper 4 level kirkpatrick style evaluation of your work to date. Any other measure is frankly worthless - who cares how many pieces of paper you have or how many other trainers (good, bad or indifferent) you want to hang out with in a semi-official manner? The only thing that matters is - did you bring about a real and genuine and measurable benefit for somebody through your work? Nik Kellingley
Richard Gutteridge , 23 November 2005 @ 12:57 PM Professionalism by results?
I agree with most of what you say Tim but, to pick up on the medical image used elsewhere, if I go into hospital for a major operation I would expect the surgeon to be trained to a professional standard (MRCS?). As for a record of results that would depend on how long (s)he had been doing that particular operation. Richard Gutteridge
Tim Nelson , 22 November 2005 @ 21:00 PM A member of the 'Sub-class'?
Mr. Peter Mayes refers to a sub-class of, er, economical, 'trainers', undercutting the 'professionals'. I suspect I'm a member of the sub-class, shame on me! I'm probably not alone. The training world in an enormous and complex economy such as ours, is one of the great mixed-ability classes of our time. Daily rates too are possibly a little misleading? Doctors, Dentists and Solicitors etc. work on 'tariffs' for defined work, should we? Perhaps we should be exclusively no-win, no fee, paid soley on outcomes, like ambulance chasers? Supply and demand has even me working for £16.50/hr at the Tech and over £400/day on residential courses, in the same week! I'm possibly influenced in my perspective on the professionalism debate too, by my route into training. I teach/train 'leadership', among other skills. I DID leadership first, however. For years, for huge corporates, internationally in foreign languages, to executive level. I imagine I'm not alone in this, either. I've subsequently taken an FE route to qualification, I'll complete my 7407 and A1 next year. The perspective and insight I bring to nascent and aspiring team leaders, for example, is second to whom? You can in a sense 'buy' CIPD membership via expensive courses, these cannot even guarantee competence in training delivery (Key word, guarantee), let alone empathy and inspiration. You cannot buy my experience (Except by hiring me as a trainer!), you have to 'do the practical', the hard miles. Professional by accrediation? No. By the quality of learning I and others inspire? I'm sure we're working on it............... Tim Nelson
Paul Kearns , 22 November 2005 @ 10:20 AM Using a medical model
Very interesting debate but how about starting with some standards straight away. Using the medical profession as a guide a 'consultant' will tell you what your condition is (poor management), what is causing it (lack of management skills)and the chances of surgery (development) solving the problem including the track record of such procedures (e.g. 90% success rate measured by outcomes). If professional trainers adopted such an approach as a standard we would not be too far from a real profession. Managing patient (customer) expectations is key. Paul Kearns
Garry Platt , 22 November 2005 @ 09:06 AM Oldest Profession????
Actually I always thought or at least heard that the world’s oldest profession was, to put it modestly, entrepreneurial ladies of easy virtue, AKA Prostitution.
How come they do so well without ‘a really “professional” certification process, involving education, training, experience, referrals, rigorous testing of knowledge and performance, managed by a truly dynamic and credible training association’? Or maybe they have one?
Godfrey Parkin , 21 November 2005 @ 20:12 PM The oldest profession?
To Nick’s point, I deliberately did not mention teachers because I see them in a totally different profession, and, frankly, that profession’s management is not one that I would want training to emulate. But that’s another matter :-)
In response to those who claim that training is a new profession, I’d suggest that training may be one of the oldest *activities*, dating back to the first time the secret of making fire was passed on from one flame-keeper to another – and it certainly was an active *field* by the first time anyone trained a fighting or hunting group. That it has taken so long to even start becoming a *profession* is puzzling to me.
Perhaps it is because, by some odd twist of hierarchical expediency dating back to the military origins of organizational structure, training fell under HR. Had responsibility for training been distributed out into the various disciplines or been centralized under strategy, say, or business development, it might be a different beast today. Godfrey Parkin
Kelly Manning , 21 November 2005 @ 19:39 PM Re: Great debate
Sorry, I incorrectly referred to Pamela as 'Elizabeth'. Kelly Manning
Kelly Manning , 21 November 2005 @ 19:38 PM Great debate
Just thinking out loud here. Maybe the answer is somewhere between Godfrey's approach and Nick Hall's statements. Training/adult learning would benefit, in the longer term, from having a robust governing body that can set some bottom line academic and practice standards. This at least ensures we have some way of saying 'this is what a 'good' trainer should be able to do'.
We also need some way of avoiding falling prey to the latest dodgy educational trend e.g. NLP.
I acknowledge that possibly the closest professional relative trainers have are teachers and perhaps that's where we look for a professional model. However, no professional body/board etc stops the occurrence of poor performance - I've met my share of bad teachers, unethical lawyers and so on!
Trainers can start at a personal level and not tolerate bad training practice. In this respect I acknowledge (Elizabeth's?) stand of refusing to do a one-day T4T. Kelly Manning
Alan Bellinger , 21 November 2005 @ 15:00 PM Professionalism - wider than Skills
A great issue for us to debate; but let's get a number of points clear:- 1. A key element of professionalism is skills; having pieces of paper isn't the only way to prove that an individual has the required skill set. In addition, maintaining a Professional Development record (ideally competency rather than inputs-based) is also key for would-be Professionals. 2. Professionalism is about far more than skills - it also covers ethics, attitude, motivation, and commitment; they need to be clearly in the competency set too. 3. We can (and should) be members of multiple professions; our subject matter determines the second profession in which we should participate. As Training Professionals it is incumbent on us to seek membership of at least two Professions. 4. There are two stakeholders who need to actively participate in the process of defining and developing our professionalism – our learners and their sponsors. 5. As Professionals we would be fully accountable for our actions – just look at the situation Sir Roy Meadow encountered on cot deaths for an example of just what this entails 6. We need to develop the networking and support capability to be able to say “That’s wrong – I won’t do it” and be certain that no other Professional would either; that requires a high level of mutual support. In my view it is only the IITT that has the competence, ability and stakeholder engagement model that will enable this to happen.
Nick Hall , 21 November 2005 @ 14:48 PM Trust the professionals
I read Godfrey's latest article with dismay. This is taking the 'trainers-taking-themselves-too-seriously' issue to a new extreme. Medicine & Law are serious professions because they deal in reality and stand upon the shoulders of giants of empirical research and tried and tested theory open to disproval. As long as so much training/coaching is based on such dodgy pseudo-science as NLP (in a true profession the map IS the territory) and gross over simplifications such as Maslow, Belbin and de Bono et al, it can never, and should never, be considered a serious profession. There ARE professional educators out there, they are called Teachers. Note how these didn't make the list of 'real' professions in the article! I'm sure this view will make me very popular. Oh well, I'm just an Orange-Red/Black-hat kinda guy in a complex meta-state. ;o) Nick Nick Hall
Pamela Lupton-Bowers , 21 November 2005 @ 13:15 PM A 'yes' to standards
Like Gary Platt I detect a couple of positions here, but I recognise that this is a complex issue. However, if I understand the main premis then, yes, I agree that an accrediting body would go some way to raising standards and professionalising the training profession. Since achieving my teaching certificate, I have been in education for 30 years and in adult education for more than 20 of those. Since then I have added a number of relevant post graduate degrees, doctoral work and numerous professional accreditations. I am frequently dismayed when I am asked to do a one-day 'Training of Trainers' - which I refuse. I'd like to know where I can get a one day law or medical certification! I'm partly insulted, but also partly dismayed at the lack of understanding or experience with excellence in training. So apart from the formal qualifications I also believe I meet Godfreys personal assessment of quality, results and effectiveness - supported by my clients. However, I find that more and more clients are asking for accreditation of the training provided to them. It seems to me that as employees move more and more across organisations then the training that previously held good for development within their organisations now has to travel externally with them. And as a result they want transferrable learning. I know that my products are of high quality and get results- my clients recognise this too; however, because of the demand for accredited programmes, I begin to see contracts going to 'comercial providers' who as one of the respondents pointed out will then look to sub contract to people like myself. Delivering a providers set piece is neither intellectually nor financially interesting for me. To raise the bar in training, I believe there is a core set of knowledge and skills which trainers ought to be able to demonstrate both to protect the client and participant, and the profession: the concept of client centred learning, engineering true participation, designing and employing brain friendly learning, being able to facilitate learning, success debrief and review, understanding personal learning styles to name a few. I'd be more than happy either to be directed towards a source of such accreditatio or of being part of a concerned group of professional trainers who would like to work towards such a goal.
george edwards , 21 November 2005 @ 12:05 PM Profession or professional?
Quite! In fact, the question was asked in "Training and Learning" "Backbite" a while back, and in some exasperation. Me, I'm quite happy NOT to be seen as "a training professional", especially if it means aquiring more bits of paper and jumping through more fiery hoops, as long as I am seen as doing an excellent ("professional"?)job for my clients. george edwards
Steve Cowie , 21 November 2005 @ 11:55 AM Reinventing the wheel
If you are facilitating corporate learning, then training is generally recognised to be a subset of HRD. (You can still call yourself a Trainer). There are plenty of professional bodies or universities offering postgraduate programmes/degrees/diplomas in order for you to become a 'professional' e.g. at NVQ level 5. These programmes provide an opportunity to apply your knowledge AND SKILLS to the job by way of a project or dissertation to prove your 'professionalism'.
The very last thing the profession needs is yet another body charging fees for 'accreditation' and splintering the profession still further as commercial opportunism.
You may well think you know you are 'professional' and others are not, but how are you judging them? against your own subjective standards or against a set of defined standards of a professional body? Steve Cowie
Richard Gutteridge , 21 November 2005 @ 11:20 AM Surely we have a professional body
Surely there is a professional body for trainers which has a rigorous training programme and gives Chartered status - the CIPD. It may not be perfect but it is there for people development people. I was a member of both IPM and ITD and consider training, development and/or learning to be part of the management of the people within business and businesses. My route into training was via personnel management and the two strands are inextricably entwined. There seems to be a lot of antagonism to the CIPD here, mainly, apparently, from people who are not members. If you want it to be more relevant to training get in there, get involved and make a difference. Richard Gutteridge
Wyn Llewellyn , 21 November 2005 @ 11:04 AM Evolving position
It's interesting to compare our 'profession' with Law, Medicine and Accountancy in terms of standards, process and 'teeth'. However, there is one big difference which may be significant. Those professions have been in existence a lot longer than ours and the marketplace recognises their function and value. HR, Personnel, Training and Development are embryonic by comparison. The market does not seem to understand or recognise the value of qualifications and cerification in this context. Clients will happily consult with Training or HR Professionals without regard for evidence of their professional standing and competence. Many treat HR and Training products and processes as commodities differentiated only by cost. What will make the difference?? Taking the medical analogy, maybe what we need is a 'breakthrough' product that is seen to make a big difference like penicillin. Or maybe an epidemic that gets good practice firmly onto the agenda. I guess my conclusion is that if we are to do something meaningful in this profession it must connect with market issues and shape future market behaviour to be successful and sustainable.
John Salt , 21 November 2005 @ 11:04 AM We had this very debate at WOLCE
I happened to chair the new 'Future of Learning' forum at WOLCE last week, and a member of the audience put this very issue to the international panel. (Now I'm wondering if it was you Parkin?)
In response, two panel members pointed out that our industry is very new (one called it 'immature'), resulting in difficulties for trying to pull together qualifications and standards which won't rapidly become outdated, or indeed which won't miss the mark in the first place.
This is to be contrasted with law, medicine, accounting and engineering, who rest upon much more extensive foundations.
It happened that a member of the British Learning Association (the BLA) was in the audience, and he highlighted how some of the same desired effects (for 'professionalism') can be achieved - without the same risks - via Quality Marks, such as BLA's own or IITT's accreditations. And there's much sense in that, though naturally it relies upon clients / customers recognising the worth of such Quality Marks.
I support the quality mark approach - I recently got elected to the BLA's quality forum, which oversees the workings of the award - but I too would like to see a body "with teeth", as Kearns calls it.
My hope is that one day the BLA will join forces with the Institute of IT Training, whom I also have a lot of time for, thereby giving them quite a formidable membership base, and perhaps with it, a power base with teeth. John Salt
Sue Ramsey , 21 November 2005 @ 11:02 AM So close to my heart!
I've just recruited a new team of trainers. During the process - once I had the candidates in front of me - it was easy to split the professionals from the "players". But also so disheartening to see yet another "trainer" who had no clue as to learning theory and practice, little idea of the roles creativity or spark play in the learning process, and no incling as to the technical requirements of a demanding profession. Do we need a professional body governing training standards? Absolutely yes.
Garry Platt , 21 November 2005 @ 10:56 AM Further Clarification Please
I have read the article by Godfrey Parkin who makes and raises a number of observations. There are some ambiguities for me that I would like further details around.
In the body of this work Mr Parkin refers to ‘purists’ who believe that professionalism ‘involves lengthy academic education, proven expertise in practise and formal accreditation by an acknowledged association of your peers’. Mr Parkin tells us that he is ‘no great believer in the value of formal certification processes’, as by and large those he has experienced or been involved in have been ‘~ trivial – commercial opportunism thinly disguised as rigorous training and evaluation’ and in many cases apparently containing no value. This then seems at odds with what is then proposed.
In the final paragraph Mr Parkin suggests that: ‘We need a really “professional” certification process, involving education, training, experience, referrals, rigorous testing of knowledge and performance’. This august body would by its nature apparently be ‘elitist and exclusionary’.
On the face of it this ‘appears’ to be something akin to a lengthy, academic education which provides evidence of proven expertise in practise and formal accreditation by an acknowledged association of peers, presumably run by another set of purists? If it isn’t then what exactly is the proposal being made here?
Peter Mayes , 21 November 2005 @ 10:53 AM Engage the purchasers
Godfrey
As someone providing services for both trainers and purchasers of trainers I have been asked to get involved in the creation of a professional body along the lines you describe (I have declined so far, sadley for some of the reason below).
Whilst believing that there is a need to professionalise training, the instigation of such an institute will have a serious up hill struggle because purchasers have their own agendas.
Like most other sectors, market forces predominate and I would suggest that few trainers are able to charge their true worth and need to negotiate to gain and retain contracts.
Consider this scenario: a government contact is put out to tender and because of the way the system works, large turnover providers win the contract. They then subcontract the work to associates. I seriously doubt whether a 'professional trainer' who has undergone the rigerous and no doubt expensive process of professional accreditation status you suggest (and that I would aggree with) will find it economically viable to work for £200/£300 per day.
When comparing training with other professions, it is the purchasers that demand (generally) the professional status. Few of us would put are health in the hands of an unqualified practitioner or our freedon in the hand of a 'give it a go' legal advocate. Purchasers (though not all) because of budget influences, focus on the cost of training rather than its value and use competitive market forces to squeeze the providers fees. Professional trainers are undercut by those willing to charge a rate that to them is uneconomical.
A professional status for training is needed, especially when you consider the influence and impact training has (good and bad). Unless the formation of such a body has both provider and purchaser representation and influence, the result could be an elite out of work profession, undercut by a sub-class, marginalised by the people who would benefit most because they are blinkered by cost.
Should professional status happen, yes, will it, who knows.
Onwards and upwards.
Peter AKA Ed Founder/Editor of TrainerBase Peter Mayes
Steve Short , 21 November 2005 @ 10:48 AM Professional body for trainers
I'd also like to suggest Godfrey looks at ITOL (Institute for Training and Occupational Learning). As a 'professional trainer' myself, I'm a mmemebr of this organisation, which meets my needs as a trainer far better than CIPD does. It has an excellent structure of membership and rigorous qualifications. You can find out more at www.traininginstitute.co.uk.
And following on from the idea of 'culling' supported by Paul Kearns, I'd go with that in principle, but I'd want to see a proper structure to help with personal development first - I was once a novice trainer too! I would not want to see the training profession become guilty of summary execution! Steve Short
David Medcalf , 21 November 2005 @ 10:38 AM Professional recognition
I would reccommend the Institute of Training and Occupational Learning (ITOL). Myself and many other professional trainers who felt disfranchised and ignored by ITD have found a happy home here. It is run by trainers for trainers - well worth a look - and has begun to address the "professional" question. David Medcalf
Paul Kearns , 21 November 2005 @ 10:33 AM Get rid of the charlatans first
We can never have a true profession unless we have a professional body with tough standards and teeth. That means striking those off who do not meet professional standards. Unfortunately I know many senior figures currently in the 'profession' who would not survive such a cull. If that's what you want Godfrey then count me in. Paul Kearns
Tim Clark , 21 November 2005 @ 10:19 AM Institute of T&D
Some of you like me might remember the former Institute of Training and Development. This went a long way in addressing these issues, and in my opinion should never have been absorbed into the IPD. Tim Clark
Nik Kellingley , 19 November 2005 @ 17:36 PM Well said
and I'll say it again for effect - well said indeed. Nik Kellingley
Do you consider yourself a training professional, and if so, what constitutes that term "professional"? Godfrey Parkin maintains that training has a long way to go before it can hold its own with professions like law and medicine, but he for one is willing to try.
