Once training is booked, most companies only concentrate on "getting on with it", doing the training, and then leaving the premises, full of their new-found skills or knowledge. In the real world, this isn't always the best idea.

Follow-up training is not only requested very often, it should be considered as an essential element of the training course itself. After all, it will always take longer than the duration of the course for everything to sink in, and to use everything that has been taught in a practical, day to day way. Here are three types of follow-up training that your company may need, and may want to look for when making that booking:

1. Provision of a drop-in surgery

This is one of the most essential elements of follow-up - where you can come knocking on the training company's door to ask for help or clarification for an agreed time period, after the formal training has finished. The drop-in needn't be an actual physical place for you to go to (after all, how many of us would have the time?) but rather an open means of communication between the people who have completed the training, and the company who provided it. Very often, we will return to our desk and not remember the sequence of clicks that we were trained on in the new software, or the different steps you were taught to improve your time management.

A good training company will not only provide the drop-in option, but also encourage it, whether it's questions they can answer through email or in person. If they have done their job properly, after all, they know that there may only be a couple of points to clear up after the training, and it should be no inconvenience to them to do so.

2. Training materials you can keep

Some training companies may hand out very useful material, websites and books during the course, but good follow-up would mean allowing you to either purchase the book, access the manual online via the website, or have copies of the training notes. This is usually standard practise, yet the onus is still on you to remember to take the training materials with you! Let's face it, some training will be mandatory for you as part of your job, may not be exciting for you, and you can't wait to get out at the end of the session, but unless you keep the training materials, you'll have no future reference to brush up on your new knowledge.

3. Return courses

If, for example, a group have been trained as a whole and one or two people are stills struggling to grasp what they were trained on, a good follow-up would be to send anyone having these problems for some follow-up training, tailored to the points that they are finding more difficult. It's a bit much to expect this for free from a training company, but they should offer it, at least - and also be able to liaise with you in the future to plug any gaps in the training.

Overall, it's very difficult to see how follow-up training in some form would never be needed - the chances are that you will, you should take it, and also investigate before booking the training if it's going to be made available to you. You'll be glad you did!