Our top tips for new trainers on how to plan, prepare and deliver training effectively, and how to learn and develop from your experiences.
Do’s
- Allow loads of time to prepare. When you become more confident as a trainer or with the material, preparation will be a lot quicker, but in the early days allow yourself loads of time.
- Practise the exercises. It’s amazing how many exercises you find in training courses look good but fail to work in practice and what might work with 8 delegates could fail if you have just 4 delegates and equally what might work with 6 delegates could get messy and too complicated if you have 15.
- Plan to have a desk/table to put your notes on, but plan to stand in front of it to deliver. Don’t hide behind a desk. It’s not great for creating rapport or flexibility of approach.
- Pre-prepare some of your flip charts if you are not too sure of your handwriting, spelling etc. You won’t always be able to pre-prepare flip charts so just do the ones you can. Some trainers write in a few answers/guide points in pencil on the edge of the flip as additional trainers notes.
- Check the technology you will be using and have a back up for when it doesn’t work (note that we say ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ as at some point technology will fail you as a trainer!)
Don’ts
- Plan to hold trainers notes while you speak if you know your hands are going to shake. Instead plan to keep them on the desk/table beside you for reference.
- Bore your delegates to death with the admin of fire, breaks, behaviours at the start. Say what you need to say but keep it short and keep it simple. You will be judged on your training, not on your ability to manage the admin.
- Try to sway what delegates write on the end of session ‘happy sheets’ (or whatever you are using). Stand tall and take the feedback you get as either praise or something to learn from. Getting delegates on side to protect your backside achieves nothing at all in the long term.
- Let disruptive delegates hold your session hostage. If someone has been disrupting your session for over 30 minutes on and off then take them to one side and ask them about it before deciding what course of action to take: ‘I see you are not finding any value in this session, are you aware that your behaviour is disrupting the learning of others?’, or ‘You have made it clear that you don’t think this learning is relevant to you, rather than interrupt me every few minutes or continually argue every point, what do you suggest is the way forward?’
- Be a bad time keeper. Delegates just hate it when breaks are forgotten, lunch is late and worst of all the session doesn’t end on time. Equally tell your delegates that if they want you to be a good time keeper they should be too, so please can they arrive on time, return from breaks on time, and focus during the time you have.
And Finally…
10.5 Training might look easy but it often is very challenging. Tech goes wrong, delegates get argumentative, exercises don’t work, energy flags, personality clashes occur, fire alarms go off, flipchart pens don’t work, delegates slink off early inventing every excuse in the book, knowledge or skill set of delegates is way below (or way above) what you were led to believe, lunch doesn’t turn up etc. So, don’t be complacent as a trainer. You will need to be focussed, on your toes, flexible, and have the professional communication skills of a marriage guidance counsellor, FBI hostage negotiator, midwife and police officer all rolled into one. Don’t get complacent!