If you want your business to thrive, with greater safety and productivity alike, you’ll need to hire and retain a variety of effective trainers who can train your new employees to conform to your standards. But what makes a trainer effective in the workplace? And how can you make sure your trainers are training effectively?
Training Programs for Trainers
In pursuit of better trainers, many organizations have formal training programs in place. In other words, they train their trainers to train more effectively.
For example, in the world of online forklift certification, it’s possible to train and educate one of your employees to become a forklift certification trainer. This is a relatively short course that can equip the learner with the knowledge and skills necessary to not only teach new people, but guide them to more effective learning as well.
Having a formal training program in place isn’t strictly necessary to have better trainers, but it can make a big difference in the quality and consistency of your training output. Also, it offers an opportunity for recursive self-improvement; the better your trainer training program is, the better your trainers will become.
What Makes a Trainer Effective in the Workplace?
Regardless of whether you pursue a training program for your trainers, it’s imperative to know what makes a trainer effective in the workplace.
In most settings, it’s some combination of the following:
- Knowledge. Obviously, your trainers need to have a robust body of knowledge on the topic they plan to teach. They need to be able to demonstrate competence before a trainee takes them seriously. They need to be able to educate trainees about everything they need to know to be successful in a given area. They also need to be prepared to answer critical questions that trainees ask.
- Personal experience. Ideally, trainers will also have personal experience in whatever they are training. Some tasks and responsibilities play out much differently in reality than they do in a textbook. If and when trainers provide details about their past experiences or personal preferences, it makes the training more engaging and provides a meaningful path forward for trainees.
- Adherence to standards and protocols. Of course, your trainers should also be very familiar with standards and protocols for whatever they’re teaching, assuming there are some in place. For example, are there OSHA standards for how to operate this piece of equipment? If so, your trainers should be thoroughly acquainted with them and capable of teaching in a way that allows trainees to fully adhere to them. This is important not just for safety and productivity, but also for shielding your organization from potential liability issues in the future.
- Clear, concise communication. It’s a bit too broad to say that effective trainers should be “good communicators,” since good communication is a culmination of many discrete elements. However, good trainers definitely need to be able to communicate in ways that are clear and concise. In other words, they need to be able to succeed in being easily understood and they need to communicate their ideas in as few words as possible. This should maximize comprehensibility while also maximizing trainee engagement and reducing the time it takes to train someone new.
- Patience. Training is sometimes a challenging and time-consuming process. Not everyone is able to apply what they’ve learned immediately and easily. The best trainers are patient, allowing their trainees significant wiggle room and providing them with support in the process.
- Empathy. Training may seem like a straightforward, nuts and bolts effort, but in reality, it’s also an emotionally nuanced one. Successful trainers are capable of practicing empathy, recognizing and relating to the emotions of the people they’re training. It leads to much more successful teaching – and camaraderie when the teaching is done.
- A personal process. There isn’t any single “right” way to train employees. However, many of the best trainers have a personal philosophy or process they follow; it makes them unique and allows them to gradually perfect their own signature approach.
- Ongoing support. Training shouldn’t end when the lesson is complete. Good trainers keep the door open for ongoing support, following up with trainees to see how they’re doing and asking any questions they may have in the future.
- Openness to feedback. No one is above feedback. Even your best trainers should be highly open to feedback, and receptive when they receive feedback, both positive and negative. In fact, the best trainers on your team will be eager to incorporate feedback and turn themselves into better educators as a result.
Good trainers are hard to come by, but they can make a massive impact on the productivity, morale, and cohesiveness of your organization. Make them a priority, invest in them, and your investments will be likely to pay off.
