Procurement Learning and Development – get the most out of your training

Procurement Learning and Development

How often do you attend formal procurement training that directly supports your job?

Once you have received that training, upon returning to the office, do you find that back to the daily grind and a month or more has passed and you still haven’t employed your new skills? Or is it a case of it’s not a priority and my management don’t appear interested in learning and development in procurement. Whatever the case training should be in your personal development plan and ensure that you can tick learning and developing off at your next annual assessment. Stop! this is your precious time and the company’s money so make sure you do it right!

Over the past decade the Procurement work environment has become more complex with greater demand in supporting the company’s ambitions; margin maximisation, access to limited supply capacity, maintaining the company’s reputation or adherence to the ever-increasing regulatory requirements of anti-corruption & bribery, human rights & labour exploitation and the environment.

So how do you ensure you get the most out of your training to meet these demands?

These are some things to consider:

• Is there an immediate need to acquire these skills?
• Create your own training needs analysis to help build your case for training investment.
• Work with your line manager to determine the best training solution. Consider coaching options, on the job training, eTraining, external classroom and finally internal classroom.
• Establish your training plan for the specific topic, with clear activities pre, and post course. Include your management and colleagues; e.g. seek feedback on how your progressing.
• When you are training in specific technically detailed topics such as category management methodology, it is important to ensure you have first class set of notes and guides provided by the training team, so you have access post training to a good reference, should you need it.
• Diarise and prioritise quality time to review your personal progress post the event.

In my experience, the most effective training outcomes rely heavily on the trainee and his/her manager investing time to ensure the skills are being used effectively so get in touch with your manager and discuss your learning and development in procurement with them. The investment will benefit them, you and the company.

Guest Blog written by Chris Stapleton a Procurement expert with over 30 years’ experience working with organisations from across the world.

Chris Stapleton Consulting Limited

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