A Trusted Learning and Development Advisor
A Trusted Learning and Development Advisor
Preferred Training Networks has a national network of 28 experienced trainers, facilitators, coaches and subject matter specialists, with facilitators in every Australian state and a number of regional locations. But the size of the network is only part of the story.
Our facilitators have been professionally referred to us as the best facilitators in Australia. The facilitators were recommended by HR Managers, WHS Managers, OD Managers, Corporate Services Managers, Senior Leaders and CEOs who had experienced them work first-hand. That is part of where the Preferred Training Networks name comes from. Professional + Referred = Preferred. Rather than building a large stable of trainers simply to achieve national coverage, we have built a network of excellence. We’ve been putting the facilitator expertise jigsaw together for 21 years now and it keeps getting stronger.
Our facilitators come from very different professional backgrounds. Within the network you have access a former HR Manager from IBM, an organisational development specialist with more than 20 years’ experience in local government, a former senior HR executive from BHP, university SMEs, leadership specialists, WHS professionals and facilitators who have worked with some of Australia’s largest organisations. One of our long-standing facilitators began his Australian corporate career with Optus and continues to receive exceptional participant feedback. Robert was born in Echuca and Paul loves staying with his dad on the gold coast whilst delivering workshops in the day. Our most rural workshp to date was Horne Island last year and this year we’re delivering in Arnhem land which is a combination transport of helicopters 4 wheel drives and charter flights. The 4 wheel drive can be hard on the back.
We also have five facilitators who hold PhDs in Psychology. That depth becomes particularly useful when a program moves beyond a standard training topic. A client might be running a conflict management program, for example, but also want participants to understand concepts such as compassion fatigue, emotional load, stress responses or the psychological impact of repeated difficult interactions.
In very niche courses (like the Courts across Australia), rather than expecting one facilitator to be an expert in everything, we can virtually bring in a PhD-qualified psychology specialist into the inhouse course.
The client gets the expertise they need without having to commission an entirely separate program.
Our network also gives organisations much more flexibility when planning conferences, professional development days and large staff events. You do not have to bring in five unrelated training companies to deliver five different topics. Preferred Training Networks can coordinate multiple facilitators as part of the same event.
At Chisholm TAFE, for example, we provided five facilitators delivering different topics across concurrent sessions. Participants could self-select the session most relevant to them while the organisation retained a coordinated approach to the overall event. This breadth means we can deliver all the soft skills at an upcoming conference. We did something very similar for Newcrest mines in Qld.
We take the word Preferred fairly literally. The P represents Professional.
The referred reflects the way that the network has been built: through referral. For more than 20 years we have asked HR professionals, managers, Health and Safety leaders and senior executives across Australia a simple question: Who is the best facilitator you’ve ever seen? Those referrals helped build the network we have today.
It trumps relying on résumés, qualifications or someone being good at selling themselves. It also avoids nepotism and using friends as facilitators
A facilitator still needs to prove they can hold a room, explain things clearly, adapt to different audiences and give participants something they can actually use back at work. Qualifications matter. Experience matters.
We measure whether the training worked We do not consider a program successful simply because it was delivered. Participant feedback matters to us, which is why Preferred Training Networks backs its programs with a Positive Net Promoter Score Guarantee. We expect the people attending our programs to see value in the experience. If a program does not achieve a positive Net Promoter Score, then we have missed the mark and the client will be compensated in accordance with our guarantee. That puts some accountability behind the promise.
No single trainer can sensibly claim to be an expert in leadership, psychology, WHS, conflict, customer service, organisational development, change management and every industry they walk into. We don’t expect them to. Instead, Preferred Training Networks gives organisations access to a national network of 28 facilitators with different backgrounds, qualifications, industries and specialist skills. That allows us to select the person (or the combination of people) who best fits the organisation and the project. 28 facilitators. Five PhDs in Psychology. National coverage. Regional capability. And more than 20 years spent securing facilitators who are the best of the best.
