As a trainer, you’re aware that you may often face a hostile audience, pulled away from the comfort zone of current jobs and asked to learn something new … perhaps without removing any of the previous load. “Quotas and deadlines still must be met,” employees are often told by their supervisors, “and you have to learn this other thing, too.”
There are ways, however, that you can make training easier. Collectively, they go under the heading of “preparing for training.” Take these recommended steps.
Job and Employee Analysis
First, see if an investment in training is even indicated. Look at the current elements of the job and also how they interrelate to other parts of the company to see how wide-ranging the training should be. It does little good to improve one area if it interlocks with another not using the new skills.
Decide if the ability you’d like improved is, in reality, trainable. You can probably teach a new technique. But it’s not likely that you can change a worker’s basic personality traits if that’s what’s called for. Make sure that “jobs are analyzed as they are at the time and not as they should be,” according to BLR’s The Job Analyzer, our guide on the subject.
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Program Your Employees for Training
No one should walk into a training session stone-cold, with nothing but a note in hand saying to be in this room at that time. Employees should be told beforehand what they’re going to learn about and how it will help them and the company. They may also be asked to do some pretesting to see how much they already know about the subject. This, in effect, creates a benchmark to beat later.
“[Such preparation] will help reduce the person’s normal anxiety about trying something new,” writes About.com HR columnist Susan Heathfield. “If [the employee] knows what to expect, she can focus on the learning … rather than her potential discomfort with the unknown.”
Heathfield also advises training the supervisor, either simultaneously with the workers or beforehand, and having supervisors “model the appropriate behavior and provide an environment in which the employee can apply the training.”
Create a Training Environment
How much would you have learned in school if the classroom was noisy, disorganized, and ill-equipped, even before the teacher appeared? The same is true in the workplace. BLR’s trainer guides suggest designating a specific area for training, away from phones and production noise, making sure all needed audio-visual aids are present and tested in advance and that trainees have copies of all needed materials, along with notepaper and pens. (It’s remarkable how many won’t bring them!) Don’t forget to turn those cell phones off, too.
Finally, don’t forget that preparation for training doesn’t end with the training. Also, prepare reinforcing handouts as takeaways and posttraining assignments so trainees can try out their new skills as soon as they’re back on the job.
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In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll look at five steps to effective training—plus examine a training resource that provides effective training in 10 minutes!