A recent accomplishment was being certified as a Trainer with Walt Disney Companies. Pretty cool saying I am a trainer for Mickey Mouse. While I have been providing training and education for over 15 years and previously taken TTT classes (that's Training the Trainer for those in Rio Limbo), being a Disney trainer is something few get the opportunity to say they are. One thing is sure, Disney does things right and they look at training as a constant moving target and an evolutionary process. We have Disney University and the Disney Office of Learning and Development, in addition to trainers within the organization by the hundreds. As with my position on the Dive Quest dive team, we are always involved in training and re-training. As an example, each year we have several courses we have to take even though we have taken them before. This includes BBP, HAZCOM, Safety in Motion, and other important areas. In addition, we are subject to training exercises at any time and without notice involving emergency response, CPR, and First Aid.
Where am I going with this? No matter what you are doing or what position you hold, training should be thought of as a process. As in property management, we occasionally hold Fair Housing training with our team. Some companies when they hire new employees do Fair Housing training, and believe they have done their job. Problem is every year law suits say some members of our teams do not understand Fair Housing. I have said in previous writings it is very evident from a survey I once did. Out of twenty managers I had at a training session, only two could tell me the seven protected classes. This is sad people, and proof we need to insure what and when we are training is as clear as why we are training.
Another important factor is how we train related to both presentation and content. Not everyone learns the same way, and understanding learning styles is critical from a training perspective. A learning style is an individual's natural or habitual pattern of acquiring and processing information in learning situations. The three basic styles are auditory, visual, and tactile (also known as kinesthetic), with one critical aspect being we as trainers need to be able to identify the needs and comprehension of our learners. When we hear a trainer speak, what is the first verifier that makes us want to listen? Many studies say credibility is first, and proving the trainer is knowledgable about the subject will either enhance comprehension of the material or place up barriers. Next is how the material is presented and how the trainer creates both a verbal and visual relationship with the learners. Are they exciting in their presentation and create an environment the makes the material user friendly?
Training is not something that happens the day we are hired, or waiting to see someone is not performing at their best to suggest additional training. It needs to be pro-active and not re-active. I have often heard, "we don't have time to add additional training." So you have time to counsel team members when they are not performing, to deal with other team members who are unhappy because you don't have a motivational environment, or finding and hiring new people that leave or are terminated because we did not believe training was a process. Make training a process and you might find things in your life and organizational, less eventful.
