The internal trainer: how to choose one and what to ask of them
Echipa HR 365 · reviewed 2026-09-13 · 5 min read
The best specialist is not automatically the best trainer, and is often the worst: someone who has done a thing for ten years has forgotten what was hard at the beginning and skips exactly the steps where beginners get stuck. The main criterion is not how much they know, but how well they remember not knowing.
The criteria, in order of importance
| Criterion | Why | How you check |
|---|---|---|
| Explains without getting irritated at the third question | It is the one quality that cannot be learned quickly | Do colleagues already ask them? Why? |
| Does the work now | Otherwise they teach how it was done three years ago | From the role |
| Can say why, not just how | Without the why, learners cannot handle new cases | Ask them something yourself and listen |
| Accepts being contradicted | Questions come up in the room that they cannot answer | How they react when someone proposes another method |
| Has real time in that period | Preparing a session costs more than delivering it | Their current workload |
What you give them
- Preparation time, declared and taken out of other work. Practical rule: two to three hours of preparation for each hour of session, the first time.
- The structure, not the content: what the learner must be able to do at the end, in how long, for how many people.
- A dry run with two or three colleagues, before the real thing. It catches most of the pacing and clarity problems.
- Feedback after the first session, from participants, in a form they can actually use.
The third point is the most valuable and the most often skipped. A rehearsal with two colleagues takes an hour and shows exactly where the pacing collapses, what actually takes twice as long as estimated, and which explanation is not understood the first time.
What not to ask of them
- To build the material from scratch, alone, outside working hours. It is the fastest way to stop having internal trainers.
- To assess the colleagues they trained. It mixes the roles and ruins both.
- To deliver sessions on subjects they do not practise. It shows at the first question.
- To repeat the same session ten times a year with no recognition. They do it three times, and then reasons for unavailability appear.
What it costs, compared with external
A 3-hour session for 20 people
Internal trainer at an hourly cost of 18 EUR, no existing material, first edition. External alternative: 900 EUR per session.
- Preparing the material (8 h)
- 144 EUR
- Dry run (1 h + 2 colleagues × 1 h × 13)
- 44 EUR
- Delivering the session (3 h)
- 54 EUR
- Total, first edition
- 242 EUR
- Second edition (no material preparation)
- 54 EUR
- Against 900 EUR external
- internal is cheaper from the first edition and 16 times cheaper from the second
Nu intră în calcul:
- participants’ time, identical in both options
- cases where the content genuinely requires expertise you do not have internally
The last exclusion matters: internal is not always better. For subjects nobody in the company practises, an external trainer brings something you do not have. The calculation above applies only to what is already done internally — which is, usually, most of the training.
How to avoid depending on one person
The risk appears quickly: a good trainer ends up delivering everything, and when they leave or run out of time, nothing gets delivered at all. Prevention has two steps — the material belongs to the company, not to them, and the second edition is delivered together with someone who takes over.
Do they need a train-the-trainer qualification?
It helps, but it is far from decisive. For internal training on concrete operations, the criteria in the table predict the outcome far better than any certificate.
How do I reward them?
At minimum by explicit recognition and by taking other work off them during that period. Money is possible, but less important than the fact that the work is named and counted as work.
Where to start
Ask the team who they ask when they get stuck. The name that comes up repeatedly is almost certainly your trainer, whatever their seniority.
Then, before the first real session, ask for a rehearsal with two colleagues. It is the hour that changes the quality of everything that follows.
What happens in the first session
Almost certainly two things: it runs longer than estimated and the pace collapses in the middle. Both are normal and both get fixed in the second edition, if somebody notices and tells them.
- Time the sections in the first edition. In the second, the structure is adjusted on data rather than impression.
- Write down the questions that came up. They are the gaps in the material and go straight into the next edition.
- Ask for feedback on two questions, not a form: what was most useful and what was unclear.
- Do not pass on the raw feedback. Group it by theme, or a single harsh remark cancels out everything else.
Internal sessions with materials, attendance and feedback in one place
The material stays with the company and is reused in the next edition, and participant feedback reaches the trainer directly — so the second edition is better, not merely repeated.
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