Archives for the Human Resources category

In this post our trainer Shaun guides you through how to forge strong relationships with the different people you meet each day including, if you’re a trainer, your delegates.

True communication requires a connection between people. When you want to build rapport with someone at work, at home, on a course, in a relationship, when trying to sell something or when trying to buy something, you should consider the following tips:

Learn all the skills you need to build rapport with your delegates on our Train the Trainer Course.

First Impressions

It may seem unfair that we are judged on our appearance but research indicates that people form a lasting impression of us within the first five minutes of meeting. Make sure you make a great first impression by dressing to impress, smiling and being assertive (which also leads to greater self-confidence!) and giving a firm handshake.

Finding Common Ground

Finding common ground or common interests is a good way to start a conversation. For example talk about work, sport or children and remember this common ground for future conversations. People will be much more open and trusting if they recognise a bond between you. Read the rest of "Building Rapport With Just About Anyone"

Posted by Shaun in Assertiveness, Business Skills, Human Resources, News, Personal Development, Train the Trainer on January 11th, 2013| No Comments »

When finishing a course, it is imperative that you finish on a positive note. Not only will this instill greater confidence in your learners but will give you a boost with regard to being able to see the effectiveness of your training.

You want your learners to leave feeling energised, positive and full of ideas of how they are going to implement everything they have learned.

You can learn more about ending on a high note on our Train the Trainer Course.

This means you need to leave enough time at the end of the course to really pull everything together and commit everyone to saying what they are going to do next!

How to End on a High

• Put a big sheet of paper in the middle of the room and give out marker pens – ask everyone to draw on the sheet and answer the question ‘how do you feel about training now?”. Discuss and extrapolate from the drawings the true feelings of the learners. Expect to receive some interesting and funny ones! Read the rest of "Train the Trainer: Ending on a High"

Posted by Mary in Human Resources, News, Train the Trainer on December 24th, 2012| No Comments »

We were really excited recently when Pure360, one of the UK’s leading email and SMS marketing providers, contacted us with a problem: they wanted to change the way their in-house training was delivered, based on our popular Train the Trainer course, to develop a structured process for sharing their wealth of expertise throughout the company.

After consultation with our lead TTT trainer, we designed a high energy, interactive session with lots of practical content.  As staff from across the company would be attending, the training needed to be relevant for both those new to the subject and those with more experience.

So they could use their new skills immediately, we used work based examples to make the training directly relevant to the work they do.

If you want to improve your in-house training, or believe your training needs analysis then our Train the Trainer workshops come highly recommended, allowing you to build on your strengths and work on your weaknesses to make sure that your delegates learn everything they need to and leave the session satisfied.

Don’t just take our word for it though, Pure360 contacted us recently to let us know how much they enjoyed the training…

From Vicky Cohen, Head of Talent Management, Pure360

“At Pure360 we have a huge amount of email marketing expertise in house and because we work in a fast moving technology sector, we really are the experts at what we do.  We needed to tap into the heads of our resident experts and help them share to their knowledge with each other.  This is why we decided to offer Train the Trainer training to approximately 50% of our staff (45 employees).

We worked with Silicon Beach to put together a course that fitted our company culture and needs and the course received ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ feedback across the board.  Even experienced trainers left the training with renewed ideas and enthusiasm for how to get their message across to their audience in an engaging and memorable way. Read the rest of "Train the Trainer Case Study: Pure360"

Posted by Andy Trainer in Human Resources, News, Train the Trainer on November 19th, 2012| No Comments »

A popular follow-on course to our Train the Trainer workshops, Training needs analysis (TNA) is among the first steps needed to establish a learning event that is likely to generate benefits and be a good use of resources, e.g. time and money. It is essentially a gap analysis – what can someone do now, what do they need to be able to do, and what therefore is needed to bridge the gap? Yet many organisations skip proper needs analysis as being too expensive or time consuming and get straight on with the training.

Traditionally, TNA is done ‘bottom up’ – that is, analysing what individuals can or can’t do, and then combining results to get a team or group result. Thought needs to be given to what individuals are compared against – a set of industry standards or a competency framework for example. Where a benchmark does not exist, then this too will need to be established before any measuring of individuals can begin; techniques such as Critical Incident are popular for this.

TNA can also be done from an organisational or team perspective, that is, where a need is generated by an organisational change such as new processes or systems. Here, the TNA is more about identifying the specific components of performing an activity successfully. It can be useful to think of these as knowledge, skills and behaviour; each of these is needed to support the next – no skills without knowledge, and no behaviour without skills. Read the rest of "Training Needs Analysis – Are You Wasting Time & Effort?"

Posted by Anne in Human Resources, News, Train the Trainer on October 24th, 2012| No Comments »

When running training courses, it’s important to pick up on signs from delegates and also understand how you present themselves. In this blog post Shaun (who runs our Train the Trainer courses) explains how body language and communication is just as important as what you say when running effective workshops.

It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It & What You Look Like

The impact we make on others results not only from what we say and how we say it but also from how we look. With communicating emotions it may surprise you to know that body language and voice tone account for 93%:

• 55%  Body language
• 38%  How we say it
• 7%    Words we use

People may be using non-verbal communication, consciously or otherwise, to show you their needs.

For example: Delegates are often reluctant to ask for help directly, but do give hints in the hope that someone will notice and ask.

Although body language will tell you a lot, do check out what you see to avoid misinterpretation.  You can do this simply and directly. Read the rest of "How to Read Body Language – Tips for Trainers"

Posted by Shaun in Human Resources, News, Train the Trainer on October 3rd, 2012| No Comments »

Mary runs our popular Train the Trainer workshops in Brighton – ideal for anyone who wants to run successful courses as a freelancer or in-house. While real world experience is essential for a good trainer, you also need to know how to teach people – otherwise your delegates won’t learn anything. In this post, Mary runs through some of her top tips for making a great first impression as a trainer.

Setting the right tone is crucial for keeping learners engaged and involved right from the start of a training course. Of course, it also helps to have good trainers – find out why trained trainers are better at training!

Pre-Course Information

Contact your learners before the course to introduce yourself and give them an idea of how the day/s will run, this should answer some common questions – Will it be casual dress? Do they need to prepare anything in advance? Do they have any questions? Do printouts need to be in larger type?

Give learners an idea of the atmosphere you are hoping to create – and what you hope they will get out of the training.

Read the rest of "You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression"

Posted by Mary in Human Resources, News, Train the Trainer on August 20th, 2012| No Comments »

Shaun is one of our lead Management trainers. He regularly runs our Management Skills, Leadership and Train the Trainer courses. In this blog post he draws on content from his Facilitation Skills course. If you want to know more about this topic then why not give us a call on 01273 622272? We will do our best to find you the most suitable course. 

The word “facilitate” doesn’t mean to lead, control, or direct. Facilitate simply means to make easier. In a practical sense, the job of a facilitator is to help create a space that is comfortable and productive for a group of people. Facilitating is like adding oil to a car. Facilitators make meetings, discussions, and events of all sorts run smoothly.

Here are some tips on facilitating:

Setting the Tone

The opening stage of any session is a good time for setting the tone and establishing group norms. Facilitators are carefully watched for signs of behaviour that is appropriate or inappropriate, so lead by example and use this time to introduce and model appropriate types of behaviour.

Stay Neutral

You should avoid sharing a strong opinion; as a facilitator, if you want to say something, call on yourself in turn, but make sure you don’t use your role to dominate the discussion. Furthermore, you should not allow people with race, class, gender, or other subtle or non-subtle privilege to dominate a meeting. As a facilitator, you should encourage everyone to participate while moving the meeting along to meet time and agenda limits. Read the rest of "Top Facilitation Tips – How to Be a Better Facilitator"

Posted by Andy Trainer in Business Skills, Human Resources, News, Train the Trainer on August 13th, 2012| No Comments »

One of the most important things to us is that those who come on our training courses get the most possible out of their day/days/week with us. We feel that one of the reasons our Train the Trainer course is so popular is because people know that we train well – they trust our training – and therefore see us as the best port of call to train their own trainers.

Many growing businesses find themselves in a position where established members of staff have to train new recruits, or that cross-training becomes increasingly important. It’s often the case that the people training others have little or no guidance in how to most effectively impart their knowledge and skills to others. We wrote a blog post on Why Trained Trainers are Better at Training a while ago, which goes into this in depth, but for the moment I want to talk about barriers to learning. This is one thing that’s rarely intuitive, and can cause additional time and cost to businesses whose internal training practices are not efficient.

Barriers to Learning

When training others, there are a number of factors that affect learning, beyond basic intelligence and the quality of the training given. Individual differences such as those below can make a huge difference to a training session, especially in group settings where different barriers may apply to different members of the group. If a training session is not going to plan, a trainer should consider whether any of the issues below are coming into play.

By gaining a basic understanding of common barriers to learning, a trainer will be easily able to identify the warning signs, and adapt their practice accordingly. Read the rest of "Barriers to Learning – Help for Trainers"

Posted by Andy Trainer in Human Resources, News, Train the Trainer on July 16th, 2012| No Comments »