Picture this: it's a Monday morning and the human resources department has telephoned to announce the imminence of a training course that your manager thinks would be ideal for your career development. Even before you have entered the training room, you are envisaging a constant stream of dreaded management-speak from the course leader.
Many workers worry that they will come away from a training session knowing how to "hit the ground running", use words such as "key" in front of buzzwords to make them sound more important - key roles, key opportunities, key factors, etc - and little else. Is this simply an enduring stereotype of the world of training and, if so, how can today's trainers ensure that their style remains relevant?
Jon Sparkes is HR director of the Generics Group, a technology and business consulting and investment company employing people in the UK, other parts of Europe and the US. "I think trainers must have a clear understanding of the business context in which they operate, as well as unquestionable expertise in their particular field."
The golden rule, says Sparkes, is to train on the basis of what people are going to need to do with their newly acquired knowledge and how they learn best, rather than what and how you want to teach them.
KnowledgePool, an e-learning, IT and business skills training company, commissioned some research on training. It found that three-quarters of employees now consider it to be as important as salary, health insurance and a shorter working week, and 95% of employees think their career prospects are increased by training. Against this backdrop, trainers undoubtedly need to be focused as the importance of a course to workers is paramount.
Cary Cooper, psychology professor at the Manchester School of Management, Umist, commented on the research saying, "Training is one of the key issues today, both creating and removing the barriers to a 'have and have not' society."
Terry Gillen is a consultant trainer and has trained office workers for 26 years, working across commercial and public sectors. He left full-time work 11 years ago in order to write on the subject. "Delegates need to believe in their trainer or credibility instantly fades," says Gillen. "You need to have built up a reputation which is obviously enhanced if you are published in your specialist area."
A delegate's perspective of a course can be telling. Anne-Marie Chetwynd, 27, who works as a marketing executive for a listings website, has attended several training days in the course of her career. "I was sent on negotiation and assertiveness courses when I first started in my current position. The trainer had sent us extensive pre-course questionnaires which meant that he knew exactly what we wanted to achieve from the session before we met him; this helped immeasurably. I remember going on an Excel course which was useless in terms of pace and content as the group was mixed between candidates whose IT knowledge was non-existent and others who were very advanced in the package."
If a trainer isn't getting through to the delegates, he or she needs to be flexible enough to change tactics.
Gillen recalls dealing with exactly this situation. "I was running a customer care workshop for a company team and noticed how distant all the delegates seemed. Halfway through, a team member politely pointed out that they already knew the subject inside out, and explained that the only reason they were there was because their manager had doggedly insisted they attend.
"Rather than carry on, I took the opportunity to abandon the session and spent the remainder of the day working out how the group could communicate more effectively with their manager, as this was clearly a necessity.
"Shortly afterwards I received a call from their manager regarding the morale of his team which he felt had dramatically improved."
Many trainers are happy to carry on regardless of how unmotivated the people in front of them appear. However, a trainer should elicit confidence in a group so that they leave on a positive note. This involves taking the time to understand how people learn as it is all too easy for course leaders to lecture on subjects that intrigue them personally while trotting out a few exercises.
According to the Institute for Employment Studies, those involved in the delivery of training and interested in evaluating the outcomes of their activities should be asking themselves: "Where do I start?" The answer to this is that they must start at the most obvious place: the beginning, which, in this case, is the identification of training needs. This is important, otherwise the remaining stages of the training cycle are based on poor foundations.
So what is the best way to enter the profession and improve techniques while doing so? "The ideal route into training is difficult to define," says Sparkes. "There are merits in a classical approach to broad-based business training and in an applied psychology background. The latter can be followed by some line management and generalist HR management experience."
However, Sparkes highlights the fact that there are also many other paths to follow. These include technical training, acting and the experience of passing on skills from one person to another - for example, being a parent, running a youth group or teaching. "The key is understanding business context, and recognising how people learn most effectively," he says.
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