Employee Training: Make it work

Training your employees is the only way to keep up with the fast pace of the modern business world. This is why developing training skills is essential. But what defines a good “training session”? How can you create a relaxed atmosphere, keep the communication flowing and the motivation up? We collected some facts you might be interested in.

Although each trainer brings his or her own individual style to the training room, there are areas which are common to the process of all learning. These include the creation of a relaxed climate; good communication with every trainee; checking that things are going as planned; confidence that everyone will learn; and a genuine caring for the learning process.

Climate

Studies show that as many as four-fifths of people lack confidence in their chances of being successful learners. The proportions are even higher for women. If the training climate is additionally hostile, stressful and emphasises passing and failing, then these levels of self-esteem will plummet even further. A successful training climate needs to be relaxed; alert; stress-free; supportive; and safe. You should reward success and make light of failure. Don’t make the learning difficult; train as if your trainees already knew the information but had simply forgotten it.

Communications

Communicating with your trainees is not about lecturing them. It is about making points of contact with them. Here are a few of these points of contact:

• Appearance: look the part; dress the part; be immaculately groomed; dress like the best of your trainees.

• Body language: your body language is the way you consistently communicate your interest in your trainees. Send them signals that you’re at ease.

• Words: use words that are short, direct, active and concrete.

• Contact: learn their names quickly and use them.

• Assertiveness: being assertive means showing you like being who you are and where you are.

• Response-ability: take responsibility when trainees make points: listen, understand, respond.

• Risks: be prepared to show them that you’re a learner too by taking a few risks.

• Sense of humour: this is always a point of contact.

Child-Like Environments

Until we reach school, our natural curiosity, unbounded enthusiasm and excitement to learn know no bounds.  It results in a child of six having what educationalist Bobby de Porter says are: “more bits of learning in place than are needed to gain a medical degree.” Sadly, most of this stops when we are exposed to the restrictive approaches to learning of the traditional classroom with its “musts”, “don’ts” and “shoulds”. To re-discover our natural ability to learn freely, we need to make training environments more like our pre-school world: playful, uninhibited, curious, with no concept of “pass” or “fail”, wholly engaged, joyful, fun and low threat.

Confidence

Nobody ever learnt how to do anything by being shown what they were doing wrong. For people to learn they must be shown the right way and given confidence. If you are aware that you train by saying “that’s not right”, “don’t do this” and “don’t do that”, take the negatives out and replace them with positive models: “try it this way” or “that’s right!” or “Well done!”.

Congruence

Congruence is the state of being in alignment with what and how you are training. It means that when you state a point of view you also act in accordance with it. Trainers who run Assertiveness courses should be confident, act positively and talk with respect. Trainers who run Time Management courses should start on time, be well-organised and finish on time. Trainers who run Communication skills courses should know how to get on with people at all levels. This does not mean being perfect supermodels of your subject; rather being prepared to be a learner yourself.

Whether we like it or not, those we train learn as much from us in how we are as they do from what we tell them. They observe us, note how relaxed we are with the topic, and remember how we look and act. In the process of training, the trainer is the role model.

Learn more about the necessity and process of training employees by downloading “Training Skills” written by Eric Garner.