Line manager as a trainer

Introduction to training

As a manager one of our responsibilities is the achievement of targets through people. This often means developing our people.

It is not unusual for managers not to have much training ourselves in this area.

This page is being developed to provide you the line manager with the basic skills required to train and develop your people

Understandng the need to train people

Many books and websites would start with the business goals or training needs analysis. However we think we need to start the process earlier. We need to understand the need to train and be committed to investing n training.

When a person is competent or knowledgeable they usually complete tasks more quickly and accurately than people that are not. However sometime it feels like it would be quicker to give a task to a competent person than it would to take the time and hassle to train a person to do the task.

We have all heard the term give a man a fish you feed him for a day – teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Training is much the same – sure it takes time to train initially, but once trained that person can do the task again, whenever required.
So training is an investment in time – time that can be used by others to do their tasks. It creates flexibility in the workforce.

Training Cycle

in the world of training we often follow a process called the training cycle. This helps us to ensure that we cover all the elements required.

The training cycle comprises the following elements:

Training Needs Analysis (TNA) – this phase is concerned with identifying the training needs of the individual, job, team or organisaton.

Determine need and design the learning – having identified the need we need to design the learning (course, experience etc) that will fill the learning gap.

Training Delivery and Support – once the training has been designed it needs to be delivered or facilitated with the learner. Successful training requires more than a course or ‘showing how’. Learners need encouragement and support to put the learning into practice, and to build on any elements not fully understood first time round.

Evaluation and validation – did the training ‘plug the gap’? Often seen as a difficult step – this is perhaps the most important stage, and when done and demonstrates the need has been met this helps businesses justify training activity for the future. At its most simple and effective an evaluation s not much more than a training needs analysis’

more to follow soon