The Casual Trainer: Beginner's Guide to Ensuring Successful and Impactful Corporate Training

By Vonda Wood

This book was written for people who have been given the task of training others but do not have a background in education. You will be provided information and knowledge to ensure your training will meet the needs of adult learners, and deliver impact and value for your organization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9780993731402

Book preview

The Casual Trainer

Published by Vonda Wood

© Vonda Wood, 2013

All Rights Reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced to a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. Requests for permission should be directed to [e-mail]. This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The Casual Trainer

About the Author

This book was written for people who have been given the task of training others but do not have a background in education. You will be given information and knowledge to ensure your training will have impact, learners will be ready to perform their new duties, the training will bring value to the organization, and you will be successful.

Corporate training is always provided to ensure employees have the knowledge and skill to be successful in their role and move the company ahead in achieving their strategic objectives. The gap in knowledge and skills, when closed, will ensure value and impact to the organization. You will be shown how course design and delivery can align to the needs of the company, and how to keep the focus of the training on meeting the business need and objectives.

You will be provided best practice and a bit of theory in easy to understand language to apply to your delivery technique that will ensure you will be successful and well received by the participants. You will be equipped to make both good training design decisions, to evaluate the transfer of knowledge and skill to the learners, and make on-the-spot delivery decisions in response to learner needs to ensure the learners leave the training with the required knowledge and skills.

Between aligning the course to the business need, and applying fundamental adult education strategies, you can ensure successful and impactful training.

The author has been involved in corporate, non-profit and collegiate training for over twenty years. Balancing a Masters in Adult Education with corporate and entrepreneurial experience, Vonda brings a practical and creative approach to training. McGraw-Hill awarded her as one of ten Educators of the Year while chairing a Computer Graphics program, chosen from among 4,000 international instructors.

Credits

I would like to thank the following people for their contributions to this book. First and foremost, Catherine Orfald for her review, editing and feedback. This book was born from a corporate training challenge experienced by a good friend, Kartik Kurup. Having spent a bit of time with Kartik to provide some advice, I concluded it would be good to document advice for all the folks that are expected to provide training but have no background or coach to help them. The impetus to turn this into a book comes from another friend and entrepreneur, Evan Hu. Because of his encouragement, this book exists today.

Thank you to all the folks that supported this effort.

Vonda Wood

Be sure to visit my website www.coconutave.com

Introduction

Training in the workplace can come in many forms from one-on-one training on an application to actually building and delivering a course (and anywhere in between). For example, you may be experienced in a particular application and business process and have been asked to transfer your knowledge to some new employees. People generally react in one of two ways: maybe this is the thing to spice up my job or, more likely, I can’t get in front of people and talk!

While I was in school, I avoided any form of public speaking, even courses with oral exams. I was terrified of speaking up, let alone taking the lead as an instructor. Lack of income moved me into teaching first aid and CPR courses. I found I was actually pretty good and quickly developed a passion for all forms of education. Subsequently, I have taught college courses, developed and chaired a college program, directed a college campus, developed and delivered a wide range of curriculum for both corporate and college settings. I have won an educator of the year award from McGraw Hill, chosen as one of the top 10 from among 4000 college instructors. I have gone on to get a Masters degree in Adult Education as a result of this passion. I can safely say, delivering training is actually really fun and easy – if you are prepared. That is the secret to successful training. Be prepared.

In the corporate setting, I have observed a great many courses and training delivery. Training is no longer limited to the experts in the training department any more. Many people are now engaged in developing and delivering training with no background at all other than relying on their experiences in school or observation of other corporate training (which often is not a good experience).

You are probably reading this book because you have been asked to deliver some kind of training and immediately had some critical questions:

Where do I start?

How do I ensure I will be successful?

How do I ensure my students will be successful?

How will I know the students have learned what is needed?

If there are no guides or materials already created, then what do I need to develop?

The intent of this guide is to quickly get you ready.

The following chapters are included in this book

The flow of the book is to lay a foundation of knowledge in adult education, learning and learners, and the process to designing a course as the basis to make smart and informed decisions in preparing for the course.

There are certainly books with far more detail and information on educational theories, if you find you too have a passion but because this is a quick guidebook, what is included in this section is just enough to help you along your development path.

The Development Process

Typically courses and programs are developed using a methodology called ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation). This chapter will provide an overview on the methodology.

Analysis

This is the first stage of course development methodology. It is the foundation for the entire course or program. In this phase, you will analyze why the training is needed. Training is expensive and is developed and delivered to address a performance gap in employees’ skill sets. It is expected that the training will develop the employee’s skills to enable them to perform at the required level. It is essential to delivering a successful course to understand the gap. As an instructor, you will need to continually assess learner progress during the course against the target goal of closing the performance gap. The training you deliver should impact the performance of the learners and close the gap between the skills the learners currently have and the skills they need to perform the new tasks. Performance impact should be the focus whether you are instructing the course, or preparing the course materials and delivering the instruction.

Design — Objectives, Content, Training Approach

The next three chapters provide information on how to design the course by using the analysis of the gap in knowledge and skill to determine the desired outcomes of the training. The result of this work should be course objectives or learning outcomes.

People new to training often do not see the importance of objectives. If you look at training from the perspective of a learning journey, the destination is critical. Whether you are the travel agent planning the trip, the bus driver or the traveler, all need to know the destination.

If designing a course, the objectives determine whether it will be a performance-based or information-based course. The objectives will also determine the content, what types of engagement and activities should be included, the evaluation of knowledge transfer, and finally, whether the training achieved the desired results.

The training approach is the art of curriculum design. It is the process of considering theoretical principles, organizational factors, learner profiles, instructor skills, and the performance gap in determining the learning approach of the course — how the course will ensure the required skills are developed.

If you are delivering a pre-designed course, understanding the objectives helps you ensure you deliver the course with the end result in mind and regularly assess the progression of learning towards the goal. If time is running short, you will be able to make intelligent and informed decisions regarding what is important and what is nice to have.

Development — Course Materials and Activities

These chapters cover the development of the course and training materials that will ensure the students achieve the desired outcomes. Historically, the development of a course could take up to a year but with the rapid changes in the corporate setting, there is demand for quicker turnaround. Your company may not be able to give you several months’ notice to prepare for the hiring of several new employees, or the transfer of employees to your area. There are some basic things that are required and secondary extras that help but are not necessary. Decisions made on what will be developed will be influenced by: who will deliver the training, the audience, the organization, and the objectives/outcomes of the course or program.

Implementation — Preparation, Delivery

Prepare for and Implement your course. The course has been developed, it is now time to deliver the training. There are a number of logistical things to be done such as scheduling the facilities and attendees, but there are things that you can do to ensure you are well prepared. Then there is the exciting, perhaps nerve-wracking day of delivery. Again, there are things that you can do to help ensure success. There is a section on preparing to handle the unexpected...unplanned attendees, a difficult participant, failing technology, and more.

Evaluation — Upping your game

Evaluate if you achieved the desired results. Evaluation has such a broad meaning and application. Although you will assess the transfer of knowledge and skill during the course, you may need to use some sort of evaluation at the end of the course. There is also the feedback from the attendees to review and incorporate into the course design or your delivery. The final form of evaluation is the effectiveness of the training in closing the knowledge or performance gap identified as the reason for providing the training. If the training did not close the gap as expected, then you will need to tweak your course design to close the gap.

Although the material in this book is designed to be read through from start to finish, you may feel that some of the above sections or chapters are not relevant to your situation. For example, if the course you are to deliver is already designed and developed and you simply have to deliver the course, you may wish to skip to the pertinent chapters, but it is recommended that you take the time to read the other chapters as well. Things can unexpectedly happen in a classroom that require you to think on your feet and come up with an alternative solution to overcome the challenge. By reading through all chapters, you will understand the design and evelopment rationale and be more prepared to handle the unexpected.

Relevant Adult Education Theory

To ensure you are prepared to deliver a great training session, you should have some theory under your belt or at the very least, some principles that come out of learning theories. This information will help you make good decisions on the desired outcome of the course, your approach to the material, what exercises and activities should be included, and how to determine if you reached the desired results.

There are several ways to view learning: how learners learn, different styles of learning, different types of outcomes, and the level or depth of learning. All of this will influence your decisions, so the following sections will give you enough information to confidently embrace your new role as a trainer both in preparing and delivering training.

Information or Performance

As with any industry, there are a few buzz words in the field of training, and one you will see often is performance-based learning. There are two main categories of outcomes or purposes to training:

to increase knowledge called information-based (understand the material and concepts)

to increase skill, called performance-based (able to do the desired action).

If the outcome is simply to understand a company policy, the outcome is an increase in knowledge, thus information-based learning. On the other hand, let’s say the outcome is to prepare employees to embrace and participate in a culture of giving and receiving feedback; then your course will need to develop not only knowledge but skills as well.

Orientation courses are generally considered to have an outcome of increased understanding of the company and the approach often taken is information-based only. But that approach can be challenged. If for example, you are a consulting company, there may be expected skills from every consultant such as team-work, communication, or leadership the company highly values. If so, there is an opportunity to turn the orientation course into a performance-based learning experience. The new employee leaves with demonstrated skills that reflect the company values.

Information-based learning means the objectives or desired outcome of the course is to gain knowledge and comprehension. If there is evaluation, it is in the form of questions (this could be asking attendees if they have any questions as is done in many orientation courses, or providing multiple choice questions as in the knowledge section of first aid