Trainer Fees

There are many different training courses in European Youth Work and many different trainers. Some organisations work completely on a voluntary basis with their own trainers pool. Other structures have the means to pay trainers who are running training courses for a living. On this page you find one possible approach to paying trainers - and maybe you get inspired...

Some principles to consider…

• The number of trainers in a training team depends on the needs stemming from the training, the size of the group and the training methods. The size of the team should be negotiated amongst the different actors (e.g. trainers and NGOs or NAs). A reasonable number of trainers should not have influence on the daily fee per trainer. However if extraordinary requests are made to the trainer (e.g. being alone with a very large group of participants or being coordinator of a big team), this could have an influence on the remuneration.
• In the ideal case, the fee per trainer should be equal in a team. It is impossible (and indesirable) to assess the different skills and experiences of the trainers and to compare them quantitatively (translating them into figures or fees). Also the levels of professional and /or personal commitment towards the training course and the people involved cannot be objectively measured. The best solution (for SALTO) is to pay all trainers equal fees, which also reduces hierarchy and competition.
• Every training course needs to be prepared, evaluated and documented, which to a large extent happens outside the course days. These additional days of work should be recognised and paid. Existing course concepts (which are an adapted repetition of an existing course) need less preparation and less development of evaluation and follow up tools.
• These principles are developed for international training courses with an international team and a group of participants from different countries. It goes without saying that fees for training in a local context (national, regional) can differ from international fees (even though the same principles may apply) and the fees depend very much on this local context and habits. In some countries fees might be higher (Scandinavia?), in other countries (Eastern Europe?) lower or some countries or organisations might have a tradition of volunteering.
• These guidelines do not intend to set norms but could be used as inspiration for other providers of international (European) training courses in the youth field.

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Translated into concrete terms:

• This system counts training course days per day (and not per hour), still acknowledging that working days at the training courses start early in the morning and can end with meetings late at night.
• The fee for travel days is a grey zone and could be used for flexible negotiations. In principle those days are considered work time (welcoming participants, last team preparations, team evaluation, etc), so they could be counted as full work days as well. However if budgets are tight it can be agreed otherwise.
• Important to realise is, that the negotiated trainer fees are 'gross income', from which the trainers still have to pay taxes, health insurance, social security, etc.
• For the development of a new training course concept we estimate rougly that for every day of training, there is more or less a day's time of preparation and follow up (including reporting, evaluation,...). If the course concept already exist and is merely adapted and executed, then SALTO considers that the preparation and follow up takes about half a day per training day.
• These are estimations which in reality surely are sometimes surpassed and sometimes seem too much. We try to find the middle road. Therefore we propose the preparation, documentation and follow-up payment to be a 'lump sum' covering all preparation (in meetings or at home), documentation (reporting, handouts,...) and follow-up (evaluation, setting up email lists,...) carried out outside the course, as the days needed for this may vary.

Recommendations connected to the calculation of the fee:

• If it is a new activity: count activity days = total number of days x 2. Reason: all is to be developed.
• If it is a recurrent/regular activity (e.g. network training courses, ToT...): count activity days x 1,5 Reason: generally, there is not much more to develop or revise but it still requires some preparatory work and follow-up (e.g. reporting process).
• For large-scale events (conferences, symposium, etc.): depending on the size of your team, large scale events require much more work on the spot and the days x 2 formula might not be enough. It is up to each NA/SALTO RC to evaluate the calculation of the fee but it is recommended to take into account the scale and scope of the work to be done.

It is recommended that the calculation of the fee is indicated in the contract, to more easily define which part(s) have been implemented already in case of cancellation.