Dear All,

Recently I was informed by a training manager of a rather large Indian company that they were continuing training with one of my ex-trainers. The trainer in question was no longer working for me but the company was willing to outsouce their training to this trainer.

I wouldn't be upset if the content and style of training was the trainer's - but this was what I had devised and taken this senior trainer through. When I informed the training manager of this fact he asked if i had any legal documentation to this effect. That the materials and content was my copy right?

He did not see any moral obligation on his part to refuse this trainer. On the contrary, he was quite happy to take on the trainer as he was getting the training 'at a lower rate' that was saving his company money. I know that my mistake was not to sign an MOU with the company or trainer stating that neither could work with the other for a certain period of time.

But what I want to know is - is there a tribunal or some 'body' that one can turn to in times like this? And if their isn't, isn't it time someone or some HR group created one?

Thanks and please do take up this issue. If we at least discuss it - it might make other HR managers think twice about doing the same thing to others.

eChoice Training

If you do not have any legal contract with your client or your trainers, you can't do any thing.
You can approach the CEO or HR Head of the organization with your grievances, but It is totally depend on the organization, how they take it forward on moral basis.

You also have to prove that the training material used by the trainer is designed and developed in-house by your organization and it is copyrighted and registered legally. If your trainining materials has the same content which can be found from Internet or any other printed books, you don't have any legal rights over those contents and your ex-trainer is free to use even if he is under contract with your organization.

pOOrnima

Dear friend,

I do not know of any such body or tribunal. The practice is rampant in the trainer circle.

My way is to forget what you have given to others and continuously upgrade your materials. Most buyer ask for soft copy of your presentations for evaluation or archive, but it is prone to misuse by another trainer. I would suggest you to give only outputs without reference materials, design considerations and logic to your trainers or to your customers. Remember parrots cannot create words. Sometimes, I share such materials to public domain, so that the stolen item is recognised easily by buyers; while copy-cats put their names on the file. The buyers or trainees sometimes have a laugh when they show the trainer that the material is already available with them.

Another means I also adopt is to have a customised presentation for each client and it is made from a master which is quite exhaustive. It is kept confidential and gets updated regularly.

The buyers who do not know the differences between originals and copies mostly waste their money and time. Anyway, such buyers are not good clients for the long run. Wait till they learn the lessons the hard way.

Regards

Vishal Bachani

Dear ___,

I have been extremely cautious in this matter and can only share my approach, to help others as well.

During the development phase, I actually waited to get my self-created workshops branded and trade mark registered before making any industrial pitch. I do not provide any printed material but elected to create a complete multi-media content through almost 645 PPT presentations which I link together considering the demographic profile of the particpants.

All exercises are on-screen and the participants are provided only with Response Sheets which are collected back at the end of the program towards evaluation and feedback . Any specific module is co-branded under any one of my trade-marked umbrella workshops... so Relaxation Skills for Professionals is a subset.

The original open-files and their back-ups are personally monitored by me. And all this on an Apple Macintosh (OS X) with several non-PC variables to prevent smooth running on the more populous Windows...

This may be abundant precaution but I have done all this to protect my rights and also prevent copying. I cannot really prevent anyone from taking notes but since my presentations are rich-multi-media content with audio, video, animation... there is little anyone can do to actually copy and disseminate this stuff under their signature.

Trust this helps :-)

Regards,

amarjeet

Hi All,

I have been following this discussion over the last few days - with a lot of dismay at what has happened. I am sure variations of this theme have happened to all of us like for example:

1. Prospects asking us to send in material we have developed earlier for their consideration and then perhaps giing it to another trainer to deliver or

2. Leading us up a garden path and then saying "no we don't LIKE it" - without telling you on what yardstick we are going to be measured, etc. One approach is to say what a lot of our learned friends have said - "A photocopy can never be as good as the original" and forget about it.

This really does nothing to solve the problem from recurring again with another client and another trainer. So what do we do?

Pause to consider why this happens in the first place? I offer to you one reason - it happens because we trainers have no society or association with strict guidlines and adherence/compliance to guidelines. Please do introspect on this one single cause why some times we are taken for a ride (Thankfully I have seen its incidence reducing over time).

If we have to prevent recurrence of these incidents in future - we will need a society/ association that we build to safeguard our interests and ask all members to comply.

I ask how many of us will willingly comply? If there is a large number saying yes (and I am one of them) then perhaps it is time to consolidate our industry (if I can call it that) and then we will see fewer and fewer such instances.

I do emphatize with this issue but lets treat this as an opportunity to introspect and if we think fit to get galvanized into action.

Your views please, members.

Regards

Mona