As a corporate trainer, you have many wheels turning at once. From identifying training needs, organizing logistics, preparing, delivering, collecting feedback, and more, there are many different things that need to happen to pull off good training.
Corporate trainers require many different soft skills such as emotional intelligence and the ability to set and meet objectives. However, one of the most important skills a corporate trainer must have is excellent organization skills. Staying organized between implementing all the components of your training before, during, and after a session will be a major factor in its success.
Are you looking to improve your organizational skills when it comes to your corporate training? With our tips, you can boost your credibility with well-prepared and executed training workshops.
FOCUS ON OBJECTIVES
When taking on big projects like putting on training workshops, it can be easy to get caught up in the logistics of it all and lose sight of your objectives. This can cause you to not prioritize properly and fall into finding yourself unorganized.
Some questions to consider when setting your training objectives:
- What are the most important things your trainees should know by the end of the session?
- Why is what your teaching important?
- How can you check your trainee’s understanding of the topics being covered?
Once you set your objectives for your training, be sure to bring yourself back to them when organizing tasks and working towards the development and implementation of your training program. By having a strong understanding of what you are working towards, you can better manage each step to get there. Knowing your “why” will help you prioritize your time more effectively.
LISTS
There’s no debating that our brain loves to-do lists. And while they aren’t the end-all-be-all for being organized, they certainly help. According to psychologist and author, Dr. David Cohen in an article from The Guardian, to-do lists have the power to reduce anxiety, provide structure/a plan to stick to, and prove what we have achieved that day, week, or month.
The article also discusses a research study by Wake Forest University that shows that simply noting a planned activity before doing it improves performance compared to those who didn’t. However, the article states that notes should be clear and detailed. They should also be realistic and reflect the amount of time you have. Understanding how long it takes to complete tasks with some wiggle room will allow you to make more useful to-do lists you can actually have the satisfaction of completing in the future.
What do I mean when I say include detail? Well, if you are tackling a major undertaking for your training, such as preparing your content, simply writing “prepare training content” isn’t going to get you much further from where you started. Instead, break down your content preparation into smaller tasks. For example, instead of “prepare training content” for your task that day, write down what specific aspects of that you’d like to achieve such as “Review training slides” or “Incorporate industry-relevant examples into instructor guide.”
These specific, actionable tasks will help you better break down your objectives and get things done.
Some general things to break down in your corporate training to-do lists:
- Content
- Advertising/recruiting trainees
- Book venue (if in-person training)
- AV Equipment preparation
- Consider electronic platform if training online
- Feedback collection plans
Each of these categories should be broken down to into lists that have more specific tasks to tackle these broader aspects of corporate training.
USE A CALENDAR SYSTEM THAT WORKS FOR YOU
Anyone can tell you to get a calendar or planner to stay more organized. It’s sound advice. But as we have all quickly learned at some point in our personal or professional lives if you are trying to stay organized with a system that doesn’t work, you will eventually abandon it and not benefit from it.
For example, if you tend to prefer using technology and don’t like to write notes by hand, you may not feel compelled to glance at a physical planner or calendar. You also may not feel motivated to write in it in the first place. But if you are already using technology regularly, consider a google sheets document to organize tasks, or use the calendar on your phone.
And the opposite is also true. If you are more drawn to looking at physical copies and writing notes helps you remember things, then a physical calendar planner may be for you.
The way you organize your tasks doesn’t matter except for one condition – it works for you and keeps you consistently aware of your tasks and commitments for each day. It may take time to find a system that works for you, but with some experimentation, you will find it in no time, and be better for it.
PREPARE CONTENT
At a minimum, the below pieces of content should be prepared for your training workshops:
Instructor Guide – This is your handbook to all the content/topics you will be covering in detail. It should also include any pre and post-test/module quiz questions and answers.
Quick Reference Sheets – Quick Reference Sheets are great to highlight important points in your workshops that you want your trainees to take with them.
Slides – PowerPoint slides will walk your participants through your training content in a visual, structured format. They should provide the perfect balance of space and content to keep your trainees engaged.
What do all these things have in common? They, along with other pieces of content, are all included in each of our course kits. Our training materials allow you to spend less time creating content from scratch, and more time getting organized for your training workshop. With our baseline of over 140 courses, simply review and revise the materials to your liking and practice your delivery. This allows you to go from spending hundreds of hours developing and preparing training content to as low as just a few hours.
TEST ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
Now more than ever, virtual instructor-led training or VILT is the most common way to provide training. Providing online training presents unique challenges that must be considered in order to stay organized. Like an in-person training session, there is a significant amount of prep work that must be put into ensuring logistical issues won’t get in the way of your participants’ learning. To ensure this doesn’t come up, be sure to test your computer, microphone, speaker, and system you are using (Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc.) before your training workshop. Consider asking a colleague to log into your workshop as if they were a trainee and see if they have any difficulty prior to your workshop. This ensures that logging in and getting settled into the workshop will be smooth. Ask them if they can hear you properly and if you can hear them if you plan on getting your trainees to participate.
Small prep tasks such as these will make a major difference in the flow of your training, and boost your reputation as an organized trainer.
CONCLUSION
We hope this blog post will help you improve your organizational skills for credible and effective training workshops.
Posted by Katelyn Roy