They spend most of their working days helping to produce wings for the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the A380 double-decker superjumbo. So when teams of Airbus UK managers were asked to focus on more modestly scaled paper planes, the exercise quickly took on a competitive edge, says Howard Connah, 45, a manager in charge of tooling operations at the company’s Broughton production plant near Chester.

“There was good banter, particularly when it came to testing the aeroplanes,” he says. The teams then competed to sell their designs, trying to produce the most cost-effective, reliable and least wasteful plane to meet a notional customer’s demands.

Behind the game, a serious point was being made. The managers, who had been brought together as part of Airbus UK’s most ambitious training and development programme to date, were being shown how decisions at every stage in the production of an aircraft could have a significant impact on the overall success of the business.

Airbus wanted to equip 800 managers on the two-year programme, which ended last October, with the latest tools and techniques to improve team productivity, as the company sought to push the number of aircraft it makes each year above 470. But it did not have the necessary expertise to run the development programme itself, so it outsourced the entire project, from design to management, to Hemsley Fraser, a UK-based training firm. It was Hemsley Fraser that brought in the paper planes and a host of other innovative approaches tailored to engage with and enthuse the Airbus managers.

Connah, who joined the company as a 16-year-old apprentice in 1978, was a little sceptical before the course. He had studied for an Airbus management certificate the previous year at Lancaster University and now felt as though he was going back to school.

But the programme won him over. “It was a change in mindset,” he says. “We got the skills, knowledge and behaviours to lead our teams to overcome problems and reach the right benchmarks.” Fresh from the classroom, he encouraged one of his teams to find a new way to store and label parts that made everyone’s job easier and raised morale.

Karen Green, head of organisation development at Airbus UK, says another manager was inspired to develop a manufacturing approach that has saved the business £200,000 in metal that was previously wasted, while a third team trimmed 14 hours off their stage in the wing assembly process by making two work changes.

“We have seen performance, health and safety and quality improvements,” she says. “It has completely vindicated our decision to outsource.”

The number of UK companies that are outsourcing their training and development schemes is growing. Vanessa Robinson, organisation and strategy adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, says outsourcing brings a number of benefits. Firms can deliver more training than their own internal resources can cope with, they get access to better technical and training expertise, and they can save money and free staff to focus on more strategic work and high-value activities, such as employee coaching.

During the past two years, the Nationwide building society has outsourced 20% of its training schemes. As an Investor in People, it prides itself on its in-house capability, but the running of general courses, such as modules on leadership skills, has been handed to Reed Learning.

“We have saved £200,000 as a result,” says Jeremy Wicks, Nationwide’s head of learning and development, “but it is also about flexibility: Reed can run courses at short notice, as our need fluctuates.” He says a close partnership has meant that Reed really understands his organisation and its needs, ensuring that courses have credibility with staff.

The use of new technology to improve the delivery of training can be another attraction, but the IT must be fit for purpose, says Wendy Brooks, director of change at Hemsley Fraser. The Airbus scheme was deliberately low-tech, as it was tailored to suit the needs of shop-floor managers who did not sit in front of computers. However, Brooks wants another organisation on her books to give iPods to its graduate intake and then download learning and orientation information to them on a weekly basis.

Getting the latest technology-based training was one of the attractions for Kevin Hogarth, managing vice president, human resources, at Capital One bank, which has 2,000 employees in the UK. “Specialists invest in technology that we couldn’t afford,” he says. In five years, he has reduced his in-house training team from 25 to five, while expanding outsourcing. The core team now draws up briefs for outside firms, which handle 70% of the bank’s training, and liaise with the in-house training facilities of Capital One’s American parent company, which deals with the rest.

Hogarth is currently rationalising this further, so that Capital One will deal with just two outside companies in the UK: one to train call-centre staff and another to deal with everything else. “They will be responsible for designing and delivering, and will bring in third-party experts when necessary,” he says.

Outsourcing offers clear potential gains, but there can also be downsides. Ian Kessler, reader in employment relations at Said Business School, Oxford University, says companies must work hard to prevent outsourced training programmes from becoming insensitive to the needs and history of the client organisation.

“If you’re training managers inappropriately, not only are you wasting a lot of money but it can also have a significant impact on the viability of your organisation,” he says.

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