Things I Have Learnt About Training Courses

Having trained Microsoft Products for over 10 years I am sure that I still do not know everything that the software can do. There are so many features and training courses only cover a small fraction of them, I could train on Microsoft Excel for 2 weeks and not cover all of its features. Some of what I have learnt is:

1. You don't know what you don't know. I have heard people say they do not need software training, then when I mention a few features within the software they are using that I think they might find useful, they don't use those features and have never heard of them. When I demonstrate how one of the features work, their eyes light up and they talk about how much time they could be saving by using that feature. Using computers everyday people are usually too busy to sit down and really search the product to find the best way of doing their job. A software trainer should know the software they train, not just how the manual describes how it works but how it can be used within an office environment, but software trainers do not train every single program that is out there either.

2. One bad training course does not mean all training is terrible. There are different training styles and as in all jobs people who went into the job for different reasons, just because you have had a bad experience, whether that was a course that was too basic or the trainer could not answer any of your questions does not mean all training is bad. Training companies tend to have an ideology about training, if you don't like their training style and outlook then if possible try another training company. There are far more great trainers then bad ones.

3. You don't have to like the trainer in order to learn. It would be great to like everyone, but that does not always happen, you can still learn from someone you don't like. There is a difference between not liking a trainer and an incompatible training style. If you don't like the trainer as a person, I don't know, say they have a horrible laugh that you hate, they can still have some useful information for you. On the other hand if you learn best by doing, so you are learning Word Tables and you need to create and play with the table in order to learn, but you don't have a computer and the trainer is demonstrating, then that is a problem with the style of training.

As I have already mentioned there are different training styles, different people learn in different ways, so some training styles may not be right for you. If you know how you learn best, great! Ask the training company questions about how the training works to ensure that it is right for your training style. If you don't know how you learn best, if you can, attend a few training courses with different companies then pick the one you learnt the most from.

Katherine Davison

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