I have been a ‘trainer’ in various guises for several years. When I first started training, I faced one of the toughest crowds going – Social Workers! These professionals are extremely busy, extremely overworked, and stressed people. So, if you are going to stand in front of them and talk all things ‘Information Governance,’ you need to capture their attention.
Early on it became clear to me that training is a form of change management. The whole point of a training session or training someone is to change behaviour. To give people skills or knowledge that they otherwise did not have, to make more informed or just ‘better’ decisions (depending on the context).
If you therefore train people in the way that you prefer as the trainer, you will lose people. You therefore need to be flexible enough in your teaching style to accommodate a wide range of learning styles and needs from your audience.
While there are loads of training methods, here are some top tips that we have picked up over the years that might just be the difference that is effective to your training approach.
- Always start with your audiences needs. What is it they need to come away with? Is it just awareness or more of a practical long-term skill?
- Decide the right format to achieve that goal. Short online punchy sessions can be great for awareness while more practical firsthand sessions can be good for long-term skills.
- Ask yourself, is your content (regardless of context) engaging to that audience? It might be engaging to you, but is it engaging to them?
- Stories work very well for engaging an audience. Especially real-life examples (where appropriate) and something that is either humorous or has a good punchline.
- If you are going to use slides, keep them short, punchy, and visual where you can. Keep bullet points to three per slide where you can. I have done this many times, and trust me, it works.
- Confidence is key when delivering content. Online training (not person delivered) this does not matter as much, but for live or pre-recorded, deliver your content with a smile. We teach it in customer services training and trust me it works like a charm.
- Get feedback! Accept that things might not hit the mark for everyone. So, what can you do to improve. Always seek feedback and robustly review it to see what can be learned for yourself.
Every day is a learning day in our book. Everyone has insights and experiences that can add to the context and value of your training. So, as well as hearing from you, also always allow to hear from them and get their input, thoughts, and experiences.
At Lighthouse IG we believe in engaging, inclusive and valued coaching of your staff and volunteers. Through various methods we can work on the best learning outcomes and training methods for your organisation, so staff come away with as much knowledge and skills as possible. To find out more, check out the details below.