To be or not to be - HR Training & Development

[Miss Swan]

Help!!!

My boss has plans to train me to become a HR Trainer with special emphasis on Training & Development. My friend, a prominent HR figure in an MNC, also shared with me once that if I were to ever be given a chance to explore my career options, specialize in HR Training as it brings enormous prospects. In high demand and everything.

Personally I'm pretty much jumping up at this chance and think it fits my personality as I love imparting knowledge and information to others.

However when I shared this glorious news with my businessman father, he feels that HR trainers are lowly respected with low career prospects (he prides himself on having good insights in the business world). Slaves to the company.

I'm not at all familiar with the HR industry and hope someone in the HR field or headhunters (SMS, please help?) can shed some light on this little dilemma...

Many thanks in advance!!

[spaul]

My company is going through a similar exercise in trying to find someone to head up our training and development program and a friend of mine who runs such a company is in the running so I can tell you what I feel and know. We are a consulting firm so training of consultants and PMs is extremely important if we want to grow and continue to compete.

HR training and development (if you are the manager) can be a very improtant role to the company. The HRD Manager has to be completely in tune with the entire company. You will need to understand the company's strategy (where do they want to go in 3 years, 5 years) understand the current capabilities, limitations, staffing requirements not in terms of numbers but the type of people that can help the company to grow.

The role should be (my guess) taking all of these factors into consideration, helping with the recruiting process whether they are mid-career hires or new graduates, and setting up the programs that will ensure the staff you have meet the requirements of the jobs they perform. That may include bringing in external companies for particular skills, or arranging training with your subject matter experts in-house.

You will also have to plan budgets, schedule training sessions that will not interfere with current operations etc.

So looking at this, the role can be quite intense and it is a very specialized field that all companies that want to compete in the market need to do.

IF the role is just to be a trainer then yes, it could be quite limited. Some still hold to the old addage of "those who can; do, those who can't; teach". I'm not going to second guess your father as I know nothing about him but he may be coming from that stance??

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Hope it helps.