Employees are a company's most valuable resource. Since companies sell what their employees can do, they benefit from providing superior skills training. Often this training instruction is left to the line managers or supervisors who already have the necessary skills, but may not necessarily be prepared to become instructors.
“I just don't have the time,” might be the answer when line managers are asked to add training to their other responsibilities. It is important to sell these managers on the fact that their own business insight will help align training with business needs. By developing other people's skills, managers also develop their own people skills.
The benefit of using managers or supervisors as trainers is that it can save the company time and money, as well as result in higher quality training. Managers are the people who know their employees' job roles the best. They are the experts most suited to train others if they possess the appropriate training skills themselves.
Another reason to use managers or supervisors to conduct training is that technology changes so rapidly that most training departments cannot keep up with the skills training required. Often there is not enough time to develop instructor-led classes. In this case, companies who use managers or supervisors to train, can conduct training on an as-needed basis. Additionally, by training on the job, the need to simulate the work environment in the classroom is eliminated.
Another benefit is that the transfer of learning is much easier and faster on the job. With managers doing the training, employees can become productive much sooner, which leads to accelerated organizational and individual growth. The art of training someone also reinforces the manager's skills, as well as providing new competencies for the employee.
Other positive aspects of using managers or supervisors as trainers include:
Training is converted into an overall organization development effort where work dynamics and learning are synthesized.
Training becomes two-way; both managers and employees are trained.
Individual as well as organizational growth is accelerated.
As untrained trainers, managers may not know the best ways to train adult workers. They may fall back on the teaching style of their favorite shop or English teacher, which is not necessarily the approach to use with adult learners. It is extremely important that managers become acquainted with adult learning theories and be given the structure and support they need to transfer knowledge successfully.
Perhaps the most important concept the training department must get across to managers who train is that their traditional management roles also include the trainer's role. Their training function is particularly important because it can positively influence the day-to-day work ethic of their group and the group's overall productivity. The role requires both a willingness on the manager's part to coach and teach, as well as a genuine commitment from the organization to provide support for the manager's training role.
The first step a manager must take to get into the trainer's role is to let go of the disciplinarian role. Just as a parent's job is made up of many roles, such as teacher, friend, helper, chauffeur, and disciplinarian, so is the manager's. By separating the disciplinarian role from the training role, the manager will:
remove the impression that performance during the training will be judged
create balance in the relationship so that the task becomes a collaborative effort
become a facilitator in the employee's professional development
establish ground rules and expectations of both manager and employee
reduce trainee's job performance anxiety by praising good work and offering remedial help
“Every manager brings a different personality to training,” says author Herman E. Zaccarelli in Training Managers to Train. “This individual style, however, must be blended into an effective training format if the outcome is to be successful.” To accomplish the transformation, the manager should view the employee as a “client” with whom he or she will interact to provide a service to him- or herself and to the organization. The manager also should show sensitivity to individual differences concerning needs, values, expectations, and goals.
Needs are personal conditions that typically demand satisfaction.
Values are feelings about certain ideas, concepts, situations, or activities that represent worth and importance.
Expectations are feelings about behavior or goals.
Goals are the performance requirements and the tasks that must be accomplished to reach the desired conclusion.
In order to understand the trainee's needs, values, expectations, and goals, managers should:
ask learners to share their feelings on needs, values, expectations, and goals in the work context
share their own needs, values, expectations, and goals with respect to differences
establish mutual ground rules, time frames, and communication methods
review goals and priorities, adding new ones as appropriate
create a nonthreatening environment by not being judgmental during training
schedule progress reviews after the new skill or knowledge is used on the job
Motivation is crucial to the learning process because it provides the if and when of the learner. The if is whether an individual has a need to learn and the when is his or her readiness to learn. More often than not, individuals need to choose the if and when for themselves. This happens when they are either dissatisfied with some aspect of their work life and feel they need to act, or when they become aware of greater advantages of certain skills and want to acquire them.
What motivates one individual may not motivate another, so it is important that managers acting as trainers know how to use the trainees' own motivations to influence their desire to learn. Patricia McLagen, author of Helping Others to Learn, notes that managers can encourage others by the doing the following five things:
Create a climate for change that respects the “adultness” of the learner and that is open, warm, empathetic, and solution focused.
Use content, format, and sequencing methods to help generate or intensify the trainee's desire to learn and apply new skills and knowledge.
Show learners how to clarify their values and needs, and determine how the instruction can provide the answers.
Help participants see the difference between where they are and where the manager is suggesting they be.
Point out the advantages of learning.
Competency is a natural motivator since, “most individuals gain great satisfaction from having mastery over their environment,” writes John Schermerhorn Jr. in “Team Development for High Performance Management.” Managers who train can tap into this natural motivator by efforts to:
acknowledge the learner's existing skills and abilities
build on aptitudes and present skills to complete tasks
give learners a vision of what they can achieve once they apply their new knowledge
By becoming attuned to an individual's motivating goals and values, the manager who trains learns what is important and why. He or she also learns the preferences of learners and what motivators are required. See the motivation worksheet on the next page to help identify trainees' “blocks” and “payoffs.”
Malcolm Knowles introduced the concept of andragogy—the art and science of helping adults to learn. Managers need to be familiar with the ways adult learners differ from child learners:
Adults need to know why they should learn something.
Adults need to be self-directing.
Adults bring a greater degree of experience to the learning environment.
Adults are ready to learn when they experience a need, skill, or knowledge deficiency.
Adults are motivated to learn by both extrinsic (wages, promotions) and intrinsic (self-esteem, power) motivators.
Managers who train should keep in mind that training does not end at the classroom door. To make the training beneficial, they should:
create a method and process that makes it easy to learn and retain information
understand
link learning to the trainees' environmental resources to reinforce and support their new behaviors
evaluate and follow up
Managers who train also need to understand individual learning and personality styles. Through knowledge of different styles and versatility in dealing with them, the manager will be able to adjust methods and processes for effective learning by the trainees. Many factors contribute to the learning experience, and managers who train should know as much about these factors as possible. The factors include psychological as well as current physical condition of the trainee.
Most managers need to become acquainted with different individual learning styles that include:
Detail learners who prefer to focus on specifics and not the big picture.
Main idea learners who pay more attention to the overview, but skip instructions and details.
Active learners who prefer to seek out data.
Passive learners who need to be encouraged to learn.
People may also be “right brain” or “left brain” dominant. The right brain is said to be the seat of our artistic and creative thinking, while the left brain is analytical, logical, and controlled. People who tend to be right-brained enjoy open-ended learning experiences and less-structured environments. Left-brain learners like step-by-step, structured experiences and well-organized lectures.
Adult learners fall into both categories. To teach effectively, the manager who trains first has to find out which learning style applies to the trainee. One key way is first to determine the style differences and then tailor training designs and methods to the individual trainee. For example, structured, or leftbrain, learners, respond well to articles, lectures, demonstrations, and summarizing handouts. Lessstructured, or right-brain, learners do better with role playing, games, case studies, and videotapes.