The Death of Scheduled IT Training

by: John Caulfield

Hasn't our industry moved on from the mid 1980's when a request for a copy of a disk could lead to a neatly photocopied sheet of paper being posted with an appreciative “find enclosed disk” scrawled on to a comp slip?

That aside it was always easier to work with trainees who were novice users of computers.

The situation is very different now that graduates have already written their essays in Microsoft Word at college and worked with Excel and PowerPoint at school.

Courses have become shorter and the syllabus more packed with little time for exercises.

All over the Internet individuals and companies are bombarded with requests to attend Introductory, Intermediate and Advanced courses.

All too frequently, prospective candidates book themselves on unsuitable courses, sharing (sometimes very expensive) training time with other lost souls, overqualified and unhappy by morning break.

The result is disappointed delegates at both ends of the spectrum and from personal experience, an exhausted trainer.

Many training companies produce course contents which don't even align with the work requirements of the attendees and deliver ill trained individuals back to the work place.

An alternative? Absolutely.

Dear Training company Directors, Co-ordinators, schedulers…your checklist:

• Do complete training needs analyses for all candidates attending training and group candidates of the same level together.

• Don't allow members of the public to certify themselves on to courses.

• Don't mix clients from different organizations together on the same Course.

• Do tailor the course on the basis of graded ability and vary the syllabus according to the organization's requirements. The length of the course, the need for exercises, will be dictated by this individualisation of courses.

• Do not force fit candidates who do not fall neatly into groups. These candidates should be taught in 1-1 sessions.

The only scheduled course which to survive certain death, should be the Introduction to any application but as stated at the beginning of this article, suitable candidates for this kind of course are an endangered species.

If IT classroom training is to avoid being passed over in favour of on line training, it is going to have to adapt to a much more sophisticated audience.

PowerPoint courses demanding use of their own in house Master slides, Visio courses with their own process maps and Excel spreadsheets with relevant work based examples.

Yes, boys and girls. The result will take more time and preparation but the end results will be better for employer, employee and trainer. And ultimately, less comeback for you. Nothing worse than having to deal with a post course customer complaint. Especially one even you think is justified.

Let's face it, how many training companies out there offer a money back guarantee or have a ‘you no happy, you no pay' clause in their client customer agreement.

Anyone?

Article Source:
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About the Author:
John Caulfield Mouse Training www.mousetraining.co.uk

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No. of Times this article has been viewed : 287
Date Published : May 4 2008

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The Death of Scheduled IT Training