Training

Like most people I love holidays and on a recent trip to the USA, I visited a local pizza shop where I met a lady who greeted me with a beautiful, friendly smile asking me how I was doing and what she could help me with; “Service with a smile, she looks like she really loves her job” I thought...

As a great trainer, you will be making sure that you are evaluating at the point you’ve delivered to get that all-important feedback straight away, but how are you delivering it?  We talk about making sure our training is interactive and engaging but is your evaluation the same? There are lots of different ways that we can evaluate with our...

Getting to meet so many great people in the UK is one of the real bonuses of my job while I deliver Train the Trainer courses.  With so much diverse experience on every course from people that are new to training and people that have vast experience; one of the problems they all tell us about training in their workplace is...

We are increasingly getting a lot of delegates attending the PTT Train the Trainer course whose business is subject to external audit and their training has recently been picked up as having non-conformities that require immediate action.  So why is this happening more often and what might an auditor ask to see evidence and examples of? It’s an extremely common...

I’m sure we can always relate to at least once where we have been asked to attend training where we were extremely apprehensive as we’ve been thinking about what will happen or what we will be doing.  It’s that fear of the unknown taking over our brains which can be even worse when we walk into the room!  Therefore, what...

Recently,  I was in Manchester and my fellow trainer Bryan was in Birmingham where we were simultaneously delivering our PTT Train the Trainer course. Interestingly, one of Bryan’s delegates raised an excellent point while the same day, I was dealing with a question that highlighted the same point; “Why it’s so important to stand while delivering Training”.  This made me immediately...

All trainers need to understand the importance of introductions in a training environment.  As a delegate, we make our mind up very quickly on the trainer and the subject matter, so we have a limited time to capture their attention.  An effective introduction motivates the group and encourages participation.   Five things you can do to improve your training introductions: Be...

We often get asked what we mean by ‘off the shelf type presentations’ when delegates are about to attend our PTT Train the Trainer course so I’d like to share an excellent example of what it is and why we tell people never to bring them, especially PowerPoint ones! So, what do we mean by ‘Off the shelf type presentations’...

On our Train the Trainer courses we talk about the 5 pillars of instruction all the time.  They are the pillars that highly effective training is all about.  In many organisations, these pillars are used as a process for measuring the competence of trainers.  Accompanied by effective trainer development, focus on these areas significantly improves training. When you have poor...

“That was rubbish, I’m not as good at this as I thought” was my first realisation that I needed to work hard to become an excellent trainer.  I was quite sure of myself you see; having worked as a trainer for years at a training school, the way we delivered the training wasn’t massively challenging in my opinion.  Looking back...