Customised In-house Training Courses
One of the main benefits of booking in-house (on-site) training, as against sending your people off to a training centre to attend a pubic course, is that your training can be customised to match the specific needs of your organisation. When you book in-house training courses, be sure to make this clear to the training company and give them a full briefing on your requirements. Produce a list of essential topics that need to be covered after discussing the matter with the staff members who will be attending the course, their manager or someone in your company who already has the skills the trainees will be acquiring.
Send a few examples of your work to the training company in advance of the training so that they have a good idea of the kind of documents your people will need to produce or edit (Be sure to remove any sensitive or confidential information first!).
A good software training session will offer users opportunities to practice the skills they are being taught. Ask the training company to incorporate your documents into the practical exercises given to delegates on the course. For example, if your people are being shown how to create corporate brochures, have the trainer ask them to create pages from some of your typical brochures during the training to check that they are mastering the relevant techniques.
You will need to find a suitable area where you can realistically conduct a training session and where the trainees can concentrate on learning without interruption, distraction or discomfort. If your organisation does not have a training room then a meeting room can be adapted for the purpose. Delegates should be able to see the trainer from their seat without having to twist around or crane their necks. Each delegate should also have the use of their own workstation or laptop for the duration of the course and enough space to use it.
The appropriate software version should be loaded on each delegate’s machine and, ideally, each person should be using the same version of the software. For example, running a Microsoft Word course with some delegates using Word 2003 and others 2007 would be a disaster, since the two versions have such significant differences.)
A workstation or laptop connected to a screen projector for use by the trainer is not essential but is extremely useful, especially with a large group (say, more than half a dozen people). If your company does not own one, they can be hired for around 25 per day. A whiteboard and pens are also very handy.
For your training to be effective, all staff must be available for the entire duration of the course and must not be interrupted by other members of staff. Ideally, they should be treated as absent from the office until their training ends. Equally importantly, they should be motivated to do the training and be shown how it will benefit them and enable them to work more effectively.
Tags: information technology