Schooling in Poland
And so the demand fuels the market and the story continues
Demand for training in Poland is quite equal to the Western European level; the biggest Polish companies are especially making use of training services even though, slowly, this situation is changing as even the smallest firms - in the early stages of their development - also raise their hand to ask for training. The figures show the full picture: in 2000, only 10 percent of small companies would hire an outsourced company to launch personnel training, and among the biggest almost half of them decided to buy some sort of consultancy. Currently, the number of small companies hiring trainers has more than doubled, while among big companies training sessions are common. What's changing in the larger companies is the type of training, as well as its structure. In the 1990s training companies often requested instruction about various things for groups of various people, starting from the staff on the lowest echelons in the company, up to management personnel. As the market has evolved, the training offered by companies has become much more sophisticated, encompassing and complex.
Blending in
"Blended learning is one of services we have offered for some time, since our customers get more and more attracted to these types of exercises," Katarzyna Mitrut, the Polsko-Amerykański Instytut Zarządzania-Szkolenia i Konsulting deputy CEO says. "It means we focus our attention only on practical exercises during the meetings with customers, while sending almost all the theory beforehand so they are able to encroach it by themselves. This way, our training is more effective."
Another form of training that has increasingly been gaining popularity over the past few years is coaching. "Coaching is end-used by medium and higher levels of staff in companies. Another way to refer to it is institutional management training," Katarzyna Mitrut points out. "We help managers and directors deal with stress, or to face major changes in their companies. They also learn how should they treat an employee who will not execute their orders."
Spring is coming
If training companies ever talk about times of the year that are "better" or "worse", they always divide a year into two parts: summer - and the rest. The first, summer, usually means the time to prepare for another round of training courses, starting in the early fall. "Summer is the holiday season, so companies rarely hire anyone to train their employees," Agnieszka Chalimoniuk, the business school coordinator at ACT Advanced Corporate Training says. "But we need to be careful, because as soon as autumn comes, they literally invade us with orders, so it really is best to make preparations as soon as possible. In September and October, we often run six to seven trainings a month."
Groups and costs
A typical training session lasts two to three days, and theoretically, there are no limits in the number of individuals who may attend: that decision rests with the client. If a firm insists on training or coaching for several hundred people, it is only a matter of a facility that can provide enough room for such a group. "We employ 20 professional trainers at the moment," Katarzyna Mitrut notes, "so we can handle quite large events, but if a customer requires more, we provide more."
The way of forming a group is always different and depends mainly on a customer's need. Although companies do set things up on their own, many training groups prefer to do the setting up. "We always form groups on our own. Also, the training methods are our concern," Marek Sołtyk, 2 MC Consulting CEO says. "This does not mean we don't listen to our customers, however. On the contrary: all our decisions are carefully introduced, explained and implemented only after our client's acceptance. It is not always an easy task, especially since my company deals with only two particular types of training: strategic marketing and the implementation of marketing methods in sales. But we can handle things pretty well most of the time."
The cost of a training programme vories, but it is possible to say that the average cost of a professional business training course is zł.10,000-14,000. However it must be noted that more complex training sessions, especially for the highest level of a company's staff, can greatly exceed this number - possibly even double.
"The market of company training and schooling in Poland is slowly solidifying itself," Marek Sołtyk notes. "The standards are quite high and I can say that we have achieved a Western European level. This is not really this surprising because, after all, it's from Western Europe that we have gathered all of our examples and models."
