Planning A Training Session

Improving your planning technique to provide an effective training session

“Take care of your employees, and they’ll take care of your business”.

By providing training sessions to your staff will not only boost their skills, but it helps with productivity and encourages inclusivity. If you want your business to thrive, you need to put your staff first.

What is essential is that your trainees will take away with them all of the vital course information. By planning well, you can help them learn as smoothly as possible while having an uplifting experience.

You’re likely to see your course broken down into smaller chunks, often referred to as modules. These modules give a short overview of what you’ll be learning, how long the module will last and how you will gather information to learn it.
 

For example, a careers course might look like this:

Module 1: Planning Your Workplace Success

Welcome to Week 1 of the free badged course Succeed in the workplace – and congratulations. You have taken the first important step in deciding what you want from your working life and how to achieve it. You will make a start on career planning this week by getting to know yourself. The activities will give you the chance to think about what is important in your day-to-day and your working life and help you to unpick how you got to where you are at the moment. 

All you need is a notebook to write down your thoughts.

By the end of this week, you will be able to:
 

By providing this overview to your trainees, you will set their expectations. If it’s a voluntary course, it will also help them decide if this specific course is right for them. Have a look at places like Lynda.com and The Open University to get an idea of how they structure their sessions.

This will help your trainees follow your teachings in the most efficient way and make sure it’s in a well-constructed order. As a result, when you break down your plan, you’ll be able to see if you have covered everything you need to show and tell.

Clarify the course objectives.
 

Highlight key areas.
This may look similar to how you’ll break down your course into modules. Depending on your type of course, you might be able to see a theme in each area. For example, an IT course may consist of key areas/themes such as – hardware, software, internet, coding, technical issues.

Produce learning materials.
Part of planning your training session is finding the most suitable way to teach your trainees effectively. Look at things like their age/gender demographic, and experience level. 

Assess how you will present your material.
Some people are visual learners who will understand an infographic better than stats and numbers. Other people are the opposite, or they maybe find a tactile approach easier for them. This may be hard to gauge before you meet them, so try and use all of these methods.

Factor in timing.
Be conscious of how much time you have available. Will you have time to get through a critical area between breaks? Do you have enough time in the day to teach, work through activities and discuss afterwards?

Review, summary and questions.
For some, it might feel like a very long day and full-on brain overload. Breaking your day into chunks will help, but it’s advisable to create a summary of what you have done through the day. You might want to refer back to your course objectives with your trainees so that they can see their progress and prepare for the next part.

Allow time for people to ask questions (and be prepared to answer them!).

Now you’ve got the basics for your training course! 

Simon Lewington is CEO of Bracknell Printroom. Simon is an extremely driven individual with over 20 years in the Print Industry. He covers all aspects of HR and provides various training to both Internal staff and clients. Visit www.manual-printers.co.uk Connect Simon Lewington