Learning Thursday is a blog series that features a new L&D article every other week along with discussion points. Read and then share your own ideas by commenting below! Check out the last Learning Thursday here.
This week’s article is an excerpt from my book, Corporate Training Tips & Tricks. And the discussion question is: What tips would you offer to someone who is building a corporate training program for the first time?
As you know, we trainers are proficient at flying by the seat of our pants. Just when we think we’re safe, Murphy’s Law comes along and – WHAM! – the projector blows a bulb. Or the boss schedules a three-day orientation but forgets to tell anyone until the morning it begins.
Because of these situations, many trainers develop an excellent sense of humor. Or a nervous twitch. (This is how we recognize each other at conferences.) We are starting this chapter with a few tips to keep the chaos, and twitch, under control.
“Plan, Prepare, and be Professional. Treat it like a show.”
– Bennette Whisenant, Help and Hope Center of Central Florida
Sometimes the trickiest part of training is the preparation process. Create your own checklist to help you prepare for upcoming sessions. If possible, try to schedule all of your classes at least one month in advance. Planning ahead saves a tremendous amount of time and effort.
While planning for your session, be sure to:
- Create a class outline and handouts, or check existing materials for accuracy
- Buy classroom supplies
- Arrange catering and/or travel for attendees and trainers
- Reserve a room and make sure the room is arranged properly for the session
- Add the session to your learning management system
- Market the session to anticipated attendees
- Tell your manager what you are planning to offer
Another important task is determining how individual sessions will serve your larger training program. It’s important that classes complement each other and form a cohesive program that is delivered consistently.
Consider the overall competency areas that are most important to your training program. When looking at your annual calendar, make sure these topics are well-represented. To properly support a competency area, you may need to offer multiple classes for different audiences.
Planning a training program can be quite the undertaking. If your organization has a large training team, collaborate with a group of trainers from various departments or focus areas. Ask each trainer to bring a list of at least ten topics that they feel will appeal to your organization’s learners. Some topics may appeal to the general population. Others may be specific to a department or leadership level.
Each training topic should include:
- A brief outline of the content
- The intended learner audience
- Duration
- Possible methods of delivery, e.g., in a classroom, or via webinar or eLearning course
- If appropriate, who will deliver the training
- Whether there is an ideal time of year to provide the training
It may seem like a lot of work to establish the structure of your training program, but in the long run, it saves the training team time and makes sure your efforts are on point with what the organization needs.
What tips would you offer to someone who is building a corporate training program for the first time? Please comment below.
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When designing/developing a new training session/course/program I always like to start by asking three questions.
“What does the learner need to know or what must the learner be able to do by the end of the training?”
This is closely tied to “What would be nice for the learner to know/be able to do?”
I gather my team of experts and really try to define the need to know vs nice to know. This helps to establish focus on what the learner really needs to know. It helps to decide what is best to remove as training often seems to have too much stuff. If there does happen to be time – we can throw in a few nice to know items.
Next, we ask…
“How does the learner prove that they have or can do what they need to know?”
This helps us to focus on what types of assessments are adequate to demonstrate the learning.
Finally, we ask…
“What content will best prepare them to prove what they know or can do?”
Solid answers to these questions for every training session provide the focus for the development and allow development to progress smoothly.
Lot depends also on the skills and knowledge of the trainer. I know that there are many differences between my region (Flanders, because rather different from the other regions in Belgium) and USA. With the very strict rules you are proposing here I fear one of my ‘rules’ will suffer: flexibility. Even after in-depth screening of the audience, the real flow of any training can turn out to be different if you are open for real interaction with the audience. That is certainly the case for life training, but I have the same experience with online training. Personally I hate pinning myself to a timed schedule (as often happens), prefer to have very clear goals which need to be reached at the end of the training.
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