It was always
easier to work with trainees who were novice users of computers.
That situation has changed over the course of time trainees
have already written their thesis in Microsoft Word at University and have been exposed to
Excel and PowerPoint at school.
Courses have become shorter and the syllabus more
intense with little time for exercises.
All over the Internet individuals and companies are
bombarded with requests to attend set Introductory, Intermediate and Advanced courses and the trainers cannot deviate from that structure, these company's want you to come back for the next level of course.
All too frequently, prospective candidates book themselves on unsuitable
courses, sharing (sometimes very expensive) training time with other students, overqualified and unhappy by morning break. The result is disappointed delegates at both ends
of the spectrum and from 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-coordinators,
schedulers…your checklist:
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 individualization of courses.
- Do not force fit candidates who do not fall neatly into groups. These candidates should be taught in 1-1 sessions.
Can the scheduled course which survive certain
death, maybe the the Introduction to any application but as stated at the
beginning of this article, suitable candidates for this kind of course are few and far between.
If IT classroom training is to avoid being passed
over in favour of on line training and that brings its own set of problems, 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.
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.
For a company that offers the traditional open course but also offers an alternative to those courses look no further than Charis Alexandra Training