subject: How To Develop A Training Strategy [print this page] Training is importantTraining is important. It is the glue that will hold your organization together by making it more efficient and effective in everything that your company does and provides.
Any training session requires a lot of advance preparation. Preparation includes planning the content, structuring the flow of the course, and preparing any pertinent visuals. There are a few things you should consider when planning a training session.
First, create some kind of handout or takeaway. This is important because it will give people a place where they can refer back to what they have learned.
More than a reference, it has been proven through learning research that people learn better if they can both hear and see the information. They can always refer to it later as a reminder to reinforce key points.
Because of this it is smart to use lots of visuals that can be used throughout a presentation. The importance and value of a handout of some sort should not be overlooked. At the very least, a summary or tip sheet makes a great takeaway.
If your training session is complex or long, a workbook or multi-page handout is essential. At the very least, it gives attendees a way to follow along and stay with you.
Having a handout is not only beneficial to those attending a training session but also to those who teach them. It is a guide to help you stay on track and not have to worry about forgetting any information.
You can use it as more than a remembering tool but as a learning tool. Participants can use a handout to take notes or fill in the blanks.
If you are an outside training vendor brought into the organization to teach or train, a handout is essentially a business card. You should always include your name and contact information as a prominent footer on every page.
As you do this, you will increase your brand exposure and up the odds that someone someday will pull out that notebook, remember you and your training, and give you a call for some future business.
If you want to have a training session for your company you can hire a company to come in and run the training session for you. These programs are often very effective for companies.
Second, time your session and find the time to rehearse. You never want to go over your time allotment for the class.
At the same time, you don't want to leave out a critical part of the training or for participants to leave feeling like some crucial information was omitted.
Time your agenda to cover all the key points. Rehearse it before you ever do it for the first time.
If you're doing exercises, you need to replicate those with some friends or colleagues to get a good idea of how long they'll take with group interaction.
Then include a built-in cushion to allow for the inevitable questions and discussion. Allow for about 20% of your total time to be a cushion.
So if your session is supposed to be a half-day program (4 hours), your rehearsal of it, including any exercises, should come out to about three and a quarter hours.
Also, make a plan that allows you flexibility if your time is cut short. Always know what you'll leave out at the last minute without having to sacrifice any key ideas, so you can stay on time.
Consider those activities that generally eat up time. These may include showing PowerPoint slides, writing on a flip chart or whiteboard, telling a long story or anecdote, and doing class exercises.
You will need to determine what parts of the presentation you consider most important and then make sure you have time to do those.
Third, teach your training session and make sure that you start and end on time. This is the most basic of training rules, yet one of the most violated.
Many trainers want to wait until everybody gets here, before they start. In that case, you are essentially punishing those who arrived on time and rewarding those who are late.
There are some criteria to factor in when deciding on a later start.
These include (a) less than half the group is present (so several late entries could be distracting and disrupt the session); (b) the information at the start is important enough that if half the class misses it, it will affect the flow and value of the program; (c) the class attendees are polled on this and give their approval to delay the start; and (d) you have a cushion built in so that starting late does not mean ending late.
Training is a very important part of creating a good work environment. As you follow these simple tips your company will be able to get the most out of these sessions.
