We are beginning a new initiative which will involve the delivery of a lot of Windows training sessions.
As we have such a large target audience, it may mean that trainers will be delivering the same session twice a day, 5 days a week for a couple of months.
Does anyone know of any tried and tested strategies which we can employ to help maintain the trainers' enthusiasm and motivation for their subject?
Maggie Rudduck
3 Responses
Same but Different
As a software trainer who has delivered several hundred (or so it seems) similar training sessions the only advice I can give is to allow your trainers to make the courses variable and relevant to each attendee – not everyone uses software in the same way, find out how the individuals on the course will use it and then concentrate on their uses and teach the additional material as a “nice to know” option.
If you know what the attendees want and your trainers deliver this then the response of the trainees should keep them motivated.
Have you considered a more cost-effective option?
It sounds like your organisation is having to deliver this training to a lot of people. If this is the case, and those people have access to internet- or intranet-enabled pc’s, it’s likely to be significantly cheaper to use e-learning. What’s more, you can ensure the training takes place when the user needs it (because everyone can take the training during the period prior to the software launch. There are plenty of generic Windows-based courses available. Even if yours is a bespoke Windows program, it could be cheaper to get a generic e-learning product tailored to your company’s bespoke package, or even have a new e-learning package produced from scratch. Please get in touch if you’d like further information onpoissible suppliers, or how to implement such a project.
Repetitive Training
I and a further 3 trainers deliver Windows based training, we try to stagger our sessions so that in any one week we would train in all the Office products at various levels, from Introduction to Advanced. Again do find out what is required by the delegates and or their sections needs and group delegates together. Then you can concentrate on the main issues and add in a few ‘nice to know’ extras. Review your courses at least every 3 months and get the trainers to sit in on each others courses – as although you may follow the same ‘script’ each trainer is unique and adds something of their own to the sessions. Get them to follow up to make sure that what is being delivered is used effectively back at the workplace. To train a large number do look at other options so you can cater for all learning styles. Working on line through some of the ECDL training material is a good option and you could offer this as a qualification, provided your trainers hold the qualification themselves.