An interview with Mr. Sandeep Chaudhary, Director, ResourceGroup, a corporate and individual training and development company

Could you begin by telling us something about your company and the services offered by it?

ResourceGroup is a comprehensive people and organisational development company of more than 8 years' standing. We provide a wide range of services to corporate as well as to individual customers in areas such as:

Behavioural and functional training, pre-training needs assessment, post-training effectiveness measurement, designing and implementing performance management systems, special advice on stress management, Yoga, Reiki, meditation, nature care and holistic living, and long-term consultancy.

Give us an insight into the corporate culture of your organisation? What are the upsides of working with your organisation?

We meet once every month to give each other feedback. So whatever I would share here about the organisation's culture is based on my team members' feedback about its culture.

The ResourceGroup team feels that we have built an organisation, which balances freedom with responsibility, fun with serious performance, down-to-earth satisfaction with big ambitions and professionalism.

However, the best feedback that we once received about the organisation's culture was that it allows, in fact encourages, its team members to achieve their own personal vision through the organisation's vision.

So if one wants to work with ResourceGroup, they can surely look forward to a lot of fun, achievement, self-development and value- addition to the world at large.

What are the various modes of employment in your organisation?

We have, so far, taken on team members only on a full time basis. This, we feel is essential for building a cohesive and value driven team. However, we have now started networking with independent professionals and also to taking experts on our panel for a need-based service.

What educational qualifications are necessary to get into the field?

So far, our consultants have come from a mixed background of engineering, management and even retail and fashion technology. This is due to the diverse industries that we address through our services.

Some other senior consultants have a background of developmental or organisational psychology to help us fine tune our services and to design new modules.

In a nutshell, anyone can become a trainer provided he or she has a degree in psychology, is an HR professional or an MBA. Above all, we put a premium on a person's vision of self and professional experience and ethical commitment.

Could you share a few of your best practices with our readers?

I would list them down as:

Meeting every fortnight to give and receive feedback. This is done in a very candid and open atmosphere and has paid rich dividends in terms of keeping the organisational environment positive and

A system of regularly appreciating and rewarding people with creative ideas, by allowing them the freedom of experimentation, providing leadership, guidance and support and even venture capital financing

Regularly discussing failure in an atmosphere free of fear and criticism. Every new idea is given resource support, and a risk analysis is done, including the likely gains and the worst case- scenario analyses.

If the intention behind an experiment were genuine, the best thing to do would be to analyse it for future improvement and congratulate the experimenting team member for sticking his neck out and learning in the process.

Last, and the most important best practice. Since we are a human resource development organisation, the least we can do is to practice HRD within us. So, very consciously, joint training, joint field calls, business review meets, drives to a client's place are all used as precious opportunities to pass on learnings from one team member to another.

What are your yardsticks to measure performance, and how do you reward high performing staff?

Performance at ResourceGroup is measured on the following yardsticks:

Self-development achieved

Tangible business results

Value practice examples set for others

New ideas generated and implemented

The measurement process is so self-sustaining and transparent, that most of it is done by the associate himself or herself. Seniors complete the rest of the loop.

The rewards have ranged from a new car, to tripling the salary, to sponsoring a personal hobby or self-development activity like dancing, singing classes etc.

What kind of career progression can one expect in the field of corporate training, and specifically in your company?

First and foremost, everyone starts with selling services to the market. Since we have divided our services neatly into corporate training, corporate consulting, workforce training, corporate events, self-development books and open programmes, everyone start selling service of their interest.

Once a professional has mastered the art of selling, he or she is taken through programme or consultancy designing assignments.

This gives a person thorough exposure to training psychology, delivery technique choices and real-life to theory linkage.

Parallel to this, the team member would go through exposure on pre-training customisation process. This allows one to learn about the different industries, functional and managerial levels in organisations, various organisational structures and understanding a client's specific needs.

By the time a professional at Resourcegroup has gone through the above grind, he or she begins to understand training better than a mere trainer. So he or she is ready to co-deliver some training modules alongside a senior trainer.

At this point, a team-member can choose or be chosen to become Head-Business Development also.

As far as growth in a typical corporate training career is concerned, the hierarchy ends at being G.M. training or senior consultant in case of a training organisation.

What are the upsides and downsides of being in the field of corporate training?

The upside is that you would never ever have a dull moment and never stop growing. This however is subject to your own attitudes towards life and work.

The big advantage of being a trainer is the sheer vastness of multi-industry, multi-function, multi-level interaction and exposure that the profession offers. You never get to see the same brick walls, the same cubicles and the same faces for too long.

However, the down side is, if you are not constantly improving your skills, knowledge and even character, you would soon run into a dead end. So an emotional and intellectual commitment to your subject is of paramount importance.

The other downsides like extensive travelling and tiring schedules are not too different from many other careers and can also be turned into an asset if your domestic understanding is perfect and your keenness to grow is continuous.

What qualities and attributes do you think make for a good trainer?

Though this question would mean repeating a lot of things said earlier, it still warrants attention. If we were to divide the trainers' skills into three areas of attitudes, skills and knowledge, we can list them as follows:

Attitudes:

Integrity with the subject of choice, a commitment to grow, a positive impetus to give the client and the participants more than what they expect.

Skills:

Communication- In all its dimensions - listening, speaking, linguistics, semantics, body language, content structuring etc, public communication, ability to knit learning gained through experiences, and creative designing.

Knowledge:

Wide industry perspective, international training methodologies, of life itself. Quiet a heady mix of attributes, but absolutely essential. Once this mix is achieved, you get a trainer whose THOUGHTS, WORDS and ACTIONS are all woven into a grand trilogy of inspiration, interactivity and connectivity.

SAMYUKTA KODA

samyukta.hyd@cxknetworks.com