Trainer’s Tip: How to Get Learners to Log in
This week’s tip comes from Carl Fitzsimons who explains some of the tricks he has used to boost the popularity of a staff learning intranet. One item you may wish to consider is come pre course downloads e.g. we use a learning contract for each event to capture pre and post course planning /evaluationI have […]
Trainer’s Tip: Ditch the Name Plates
Reflecting on the old argument about introductions and whether you should use name plates on courses, Paul Sinclair offers this memorable tip. One technique that worked very well recently on a course I attended was to ask the attendees to introduce themselves and compare their first name with somebody famous. They then had to explain […]
Trainer’s Tip: Diversity Exercises
Eddie Newall offers some advice on how to get delegates thinking about diversity. There was an excellent thread on perceptions and prejudice exercises last year here. Other possibilities: A diversity ‘health check’ – give them a list of questions to establish their current knowledge in relation to the learning outcomes. For example: * Define culture, […]
Trainer’s Tip: Engaging E-Learning
Are your staff are turning off e-learning? Read Paul Allman’s advice for creating engaging CBT. There are lots of things you could do to make computer based training (CBT) more interesting, but before you hurtle off and create wonderful graphics, animations, audio, interactions etc, ask yourself why? Why are you doing this? Why do people […]
Trainer’s Tip: The Induction
This week Clive Boorman offers some advice on how to conduct a rolling induction. I have extensive experience of managing an accredited rolling induction process – here’s what we do. People will simply not retain volumes of information delivered in only one way. Whatever you do, you need to have different people involved in delivery, […]
Trainer’s Tip: Stress Management
This week Joanna Howard offers some advice on how to make the case for stress management training in a high-pressure environment. If you’re in a high stress environment, people can get sucked into a “when the going gets tough…” set of assumptions. This means that few people like to acknowledge they’re under stress some people […]
Trainer’s Tip: Customer Service Call Monitoring
In this week’s tip, Andrew Laycock explains how to set out a call monitoring sheet for staff development. Some general pointers from the many I have designed would be: * Call opening: as in was the standard greeting used, security procedures adhered to, customer addressed by name. * Communication skills: types of questions asked, demonstrated […]
Trainer’s Tip: Prioritising Training Needs
Andrew Laycock offers an insight into how, as a training manager, he helped managers prioritise training needs.Assuming your managers have regular development discussions with their employees, a process that I have used successfully in the past was categorising needs in to short, medium and long term. Short term = needs the training to fulfil their […]
Trainer’s Tip: Getting their Full Attention
This week’s tip comes from Jenny Kent, who uses this innovative method of engaging disinterested delegates. Something I find works is to generate an element of competition into the proceedings. However un-interested or ‘grumpy’ delegates are, most people like to compete! I’ve used various methods for this but most revolved around question cards of which […]
Trainer’s Tip: Set Perfomance Targets that Motivate
This week Peter Hunter explains how to set performance targets that inspire rather than demotivate staff. Setting performance targets can have a negative effect on the ability of the workers to achieve them. The workforce perceives performance targets as the management telling them what they should be doing. Telling people what to do makes them […]
Trainer’s Tip: How to Make the Case for E-Learning
Over two years ago, I introduced e-learning to the company I worked for. In making a case for investment, I made a clear case as to how e-learning would complement other forms of training in the organisation. E-learning is not for everyone as it depends on one’s learning style so, in writing the strategy, e-learning […]
Trainer’s Tip: How to Beat Presentation Nerves
I am a hypnotherapist as well as a trainer and one of the main reasons people come to me is for presenting nerves.Something you can do on your own (after having thought of things that can go wrong and having found solutions) is to go through the process in your mind experiencing yourself carrying it […]
Trainer’s Tip: Cultural Change Programmes
I have a few rule-of-thumb notes from having worked in and alongside change programmes. These are important whether or not you use consultants: * It’s important to start at the top – unless the CEO and directors are keen, and prepared to shift their own behaviours, chances are it won’t stick, or will just be […]
Trainer’s Tip: Course Take Up
Tom Greenan’s tips on how to boost the number of staff taking up training courses. 1. Is the training good enough? Has it been bought off the shelf, is there a chance that it’s not fully relevant, inspiring etc?2. Is your organisation selling the benefits of the training enough – to enhance their customer interactions, […]
Trainer’s Tip: What Percentage of Payroll to Spend on Training
Leading or benchmark companies seem to spend around double in payroll terms than many other companies. This probably has not made them ‘leading’. Rather, they got to be ‘leading’ through a combination of factors and in their journey have developed their philosophy to the point where they (and their shareholders) really value training, and are […]
Trainer’s Tip: The Investment Centre
This week’s tip comes from Andrew Mayo writing in response to a question about runing a training department as either a cost or profit centre. Click here to read the question and other responses. There is an alternative title (to running a training department as a cost or profit centre) – “investment centre”! This is […]
Trainer’s Tip: Learning Retention
This week’s tip comes from Carol Long, writing in resonse to an Any Answers question about learning retention. When you are training people, the information will only stay in their head if they have fully engaged with what they are taught. This means a number of things have to happen. First you really have to […]
The Future for Coaching
According to The Coaching Study 2004 large organisations predict a significant increase in their use of coaches in the near future. Co-author of the study Jerry Arnott of Origin Consulting, examines what the key findings of his research mean for those buying in coaching and the coaches themselves. Against a background of increasing demand […]
