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In-company trainers as key drivers of quality 81

7.2. Guardians of quality training with low
professional status

In most countries, trainers of adults are not required to hold a particular
training qualification, but need to be skilled workers with a certain period of
work experience (Cedefop, 2007a). However, the basic competences and
qualifications of trainers are receiving increased attention in a number of
countries in the context of current lifelong learning and employment strategies,
for which skill development and increased learning opportunities in the
workplace are founding stones,. At national and sectoral level, professional
standards and competence frameworks for in-company trainers have been
developed or are under consideration to enhance their status and basic
qualifications. In several Member States, trainers of adults now need to
acquire professional certification and be registered with a professional
body, following a certification process that considers the validation of prior
on-the-job learning and defines training pathways, which allow them to meet
competence demands.
In-company trainers are not considered as an occupational group, given
that, with the exception of full-time trainers in large companies or training
consultants, training tends to be more a task than a job position. In very
many cases, the training of colleagues is not clearly identifiable as a separate
occupation but is a role combined with many other tasks. As a consequence,
in-company training is not always provided on a full-time basis by people who
possess specialised and officially recognised qualifications. A supplementary
distinction has to be made between large companies, where training is
specialised and carried out either by specifically appointed staff or by external
training providers, and small companies, where the owner himself or a trusted
employee is in charge of training and the induction of new employees.
Part-time trainers who train their colleagues, through mentoring or coaching,
for example, and introduce them to the company’s production and working
processes, tend not to perceive themselves as ‘trainers’. Since they do not
have a strong training professional identity, only in exceptional cases, they
take advantage of available opportunities to further improve their training
competences. Although, the continuing professional development of trainers
should be viewed as a lifelong enterprise, only in a few cases is it compulsory
and it does not usually lead to salary increases or better career development
prospects. For many reasons, in-company trainers do not engage in continuing
learning: lack of incentives (for example, financial incentives, improved career