As companies launch new products, hire new workers, open new offices, or incorporate new technologies — essentially, as companies grow — they find the need to provide training. Good training, that is, training that is current and readily accessible, that doesn’t disrupt the day-to-day business, and that directly impacts employee performance.
Off-the-shelf training from a software vendor — say, for Microsoft SharePoint or Salesforce — can surely teach workers how to find documents in the shared drive, or how to fill out HR forms. But what about training in what the business actually does?
This is where a lot of companies fall short. The very IP of an organization is often never well captured or shared properly with others inside the four walls. Too often, institutional knowledge dissipates and disappears, before it can be effective and shared with an employee who can make a difference.
But can anyone become a trainer? Instructional designer Fiona Pollock, in a brief but insightful blog post in TrainingZone, explores this very idea. She writes:
Training, learning and development is about getting someone to do something differently, inspiring them to improve their performance, getting them to work in a new way or with new people effectively.
This makes sense, but beyond the ability to teach and be engaging, what about the very subject matter being shared? This is just as valuable. If the content isn’t valuable or actionable, then the entire training effort is futile.
Cognota® is working to close this gap. Our learning development tool is designed specifically for knowledge capture and transfer, so that a company’s internal experts — those with institutional knowledge — can share what they know best, and others inside the company can reap the benefits of this expertise.
These internal company experts shouldn’t be tasked with developing courses on their own — or in learning how to become instructors or trainers themselves. Provide them with the necessary tools to carry out this function effectively.
Indeed, anyone can become a trainer.
