Trivializing Training: BY LATIKA KAUL

Imagine this:

Your friend gets a brand new car and invites you for a drive. When you reach his house, you are awestruck at the sight of his brand new car. It’s shiny, black spotless paint is almost blinding and the smell of the interior leather is immensely inviting. You both finally sit in the car and your friend puts his key in the ignition. The roar of a new car. Wow! You relax and stretch yourself on the passenger seat and casually ask your friend.

“You didn’t even tell me, you were learning to drive and now suddenly a new car and license”

“I don’t have a license.”

“You don’t have a license?”

“No bro. Don’t know how to drive only, how will I get a license!!”

“WHAT?? You don’t know how to drive?”

“Nah. But I have played enough GTA, so don’t worry”

What will you do next?

If you will not leave the fate of your life in the hands of an untrained driver, why risk the life of your company?

Even though my experience in the training field is very limited, I often wonder why organizations even conduct trainings in the first place….

• Is it because while recruiting, employees were promised growth and development?

• Or, because they have some funds allotted for L&D, which need to be utilized?

• Or better yet, because of certain mandates?

The answers to all these questions should be a big NO, but sadly it isn’t.

Today, many organizations conduct trainings largely for the above reasons and in doing so they rob themselves and their employees of the many benefits an effective training program can offer. 

 Training will develop your employees’ skills. Skilled employees:

- Make lesser mistakes

- Require minimum supervision 

- Are better equipped to handle challenging situations. 

 Training can not only become a recruitment tool but also an effective retention tool. The youth today is not satisfied with a big paycheque. They want to develop and grow. As an employer, this trait can actually make your work even simpler. These employees will be more eager to attend training workshops, which will develop them and your organization. 

 An effective training program can help build trust of your employees in you. This, in turn, increases their job satisfaction, loyalty and reduces attrition. 

 Training can also add flexibility and efficiency. Employees can be cross-trained to become proficient in the different aspects of the organization. This will help keep them interested and will be extremely useful during times of vacant positions or absenteeism. 

 Training has become essential for knowledge transfer. In-house training, or trainings conducted by an experienced member of a team will ensure that there are enough people to take charge if the particular experienced person leaves the company. Mostly, trainings assure that both employees and organizations are not stagnant but always emerging and growing.

These benefits might provoke you to conduct trainings for the right reason. But that is not enough.

Trainings will be of no use until they are executed perfectly. This execution begins from initial planning but does not end at the completion of training. Yes, there is more to training than just arranging for a trainer and holding a two-day training workshop. Training continues even after the workshop is over, but not many organizations help in driving the post workshop training.

Even during training, employees face challenges such as:

- Urgent calls or emails

- Arriving late or leaving early due to work commitments

- Sudden meetings or clients that need to be attended to

- Attending programs which are not relevant for their particular roles

Training needs to be planned keeping the employee’s roles and competencies in mind. They need to be prioritized and arranged well so that the employee can attend the program without any baggage from work. Another important point that needs to be addressed is that of management and staff support. An employee can harness all the benefits of training only when his colleagues and his supervisors support him. These employees can be supported by:

 They should be able to focus on the training with undivided attention. This means no work related calls or emails.

 The management has to support the employees in practicing what they have learned in their training. This could mean giving them assignments that will help them inculcate their learned skills or behaviours. They need to be given time to effectively apply all that they have learned.

 Employees can be assessed on how well they apply their learned skills. This well help in keeping them motivated and can also provide a chance for the organization to assess how cost-effective the training was.

By considering the above points, a training program can be made more successful and valuable to the employees and to the organization. 

So, let us not trivialize a training program by conducting substandard TNA’s and hiring unqualified trainers.

Let us not trivialize a training program by randomly selecting a date for the workshop or by completing it as a compulsion.

 Let us definitely not trivialize a training program by trivializing its importance. 

Conducting an effective training program is a huge responsibility which if shouldered correctly will reap your organization a sizable yield. This responsibility will obviously require a great deal of effort. There is a 100% certainty of headaches and maybe some ulcers and perhaps what organizations avoid the most- “spending money”. But, once again please imagine this situation:

CFO asks the CEO: “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us?”

CEO: “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”

Starting Off With A Great First Impression !! - By Rohit Manoharan

While the process of interviewing depends largely on the independent approach of the interviewer, there are few things that would make an immediate impact in case if you were to follow the same. 

Here are some handy tips on how you could make the interviewer think about giving you an upper edge over the others :

You need to make a conscious effort to smile when you enter the room and greet the person or people sitting in the room.

If possible try and get an understanding of how many people are there in the room.

This will help you decide sequence in which you would go ahead and greet them and also help you with the relevant eye contact

DO NOT sit down unless and until you are requested to, this shows good manners and etiquette

Hold out your hand in an open gesture for shaking and ensure that the hand is straight, at a 90 degree angle to the floor.

DO NOT tilt your hand inward or outward as that can reveal things about your personality which might begin to influence the interviewer even before you have started with the interview process

Once seated, thank the interviewer and ask him / her if you may share a copy of your CV with them ? Depending upon their answer take the next step.

DO NOT keep shuffling papers for long and make too much of noise around that activity as that might distract the interviewers and also lead to  certain level of irritation within them.

Once all of this is done, you are now ready to actually start with the interview process, keep your cool, stay steady, take a deep breath and start off with the process.

If you believe in yourself, you are bound to make a great impression, all the very best for that very important 1st interview of your life !!

Search 4 Excellence Consulting Services Inc.

Visit us @ www.search4excellence.com

Your "Attitude" Defines Your "Altitude" by Rohit Manoharan

Attitude is Everything !

A very old saying but it always drives the point home. There's none other than your attitude which defines how far you go in life. Interviews and the selection procedure hence are no different when it come to this magic word known as "Attitude". People feel that attitude is a negative word because of the commonly used phrase "This guy throws a lot of attitude man", etc. However, on the contrary, attitude is the way you look at life and how you deal with the situations around you.

In simple terms, your attitude in the interview process can be clearly understood via the following methods and trust me interviewers are constantly on the lookout for such hints which help them understand whether you carry a positive attitude or not. Let's take a look at some of the most important factors which help you define the right attitude in an interview :

Greeting : the way you open up to a person and your first impact or impression can speak volumes about what your attitude towards life is

Dressing : a person who is rightly dressed for the occasion can make quite the impact which none other can, focus on this very important aspect when you step in for the interview

Eye Contact : people who are clear of heart and conscience will always encourage and believe in eye to eye contact, go for this style even though you might not be confident of an answer, it can make things work in your favor in most of the cases

Language : a very commonly made mistake is the usage of slangs which can really put off interviewers. You would rather say stuff like "I would want to believe in . . ." rather than saying "I would wanna believe in . . ."

Energy : While a lot of people believe this is not very important if the other qualities exist, I would tend to dis-agree. It's because your energy and that too pure positive energy can make people get up and take notice of what's happening around you, I would say that this is the key to make a huge difference to the overall scenario

Responses : whenever a query is thrown at you, if your responses are vague and lack the required energy, it makes people feel and believe that there isn't much that you have to offer. Be crisp and to the point, you can make a lot of difference that way

Tone : the intonation that you use is very important in order to convey the required message with the right attitude. You can sound over assertive, aggressive, humble or adjusting depending upon the pitch that you modulate during the conversation

Remember, that each of the above need to be used in a fair combination with each other rather than being used in a sequential manner. You would need to exhibit these aspects during all stages of the interview in order for the interviewer to understand your attitude and fall in tune with it.

The interviewer needs to understand also that this is not a made up attitude and actually is a natural one which you display at all stages in time. If you don't convince the interviewer of this, you stand the chance of risking the interview itself as you might sound made up.

So, get out there and do your best to put up the right attitude because that's all you really have which is in your control in order to ensure that you leave that long lasting impression on your audience !!

Search 4 Excellence Consulting Services Inc.

Visit us @ http://mycampusgear.blogspot.in/

Things your work can teach you - BY SHRUTI NAIR.

“The Secret of Change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new”

-Socrates

This happens to be my last contribution to the blog of Search 4 Excellence. My stay here has been a stepping stone in my life. The worth of an emotional reaction to something is defined by the people who induce it. Hence, I want to take this opportunity to write a letter to my 15 year old self, specifically telling her of what all she is going to experience in this particular phase of her life.

To,

Dearest Shruti,

You must’ve just completed your 10^th board exams recently. Don’t worry about not knowing yet what to do with your life, things take course in a way such that they always take you where your heart lies; even when you don’t know where your heart lies. You will move on to study some great works of mankind and eventually find your passion in it.

This passion of yours will make you meet some amazing people. You will meet these people in your ‘professional life’ and they will teach you way more than skills to work better or how an organization functions.

They will teach you things you will remember all your life. You will learn that sometimes people put in a lot of hard work in getting to know you, and that they will never show you. So, think twice before leaving someone.

You will learn that when things are not looking good for you, when life hits you with a crisis, you will find the most random people who will get you through it. They might do it knowingly or unknowingly but you will find them. So, hold tight during the roller coaster ride.

They will prove to you that people, who are genuine and honest, during an interview, actually go on to add more value than people who are smart with witty answers. So, always look for truth, more than money, more than love.

You will begin to realize a beautiful truth: The most overwhelming personalities are, sometimes, the softest at heart. So, give everyone the benefit of doubt.

Everyone has one thing that the world needs. You will learn that if you didn’t find something special about someone, change your perspective, and give them a chance to show you.

 Most of all you will learn that it’s okay to be weak. It’s even better to know your weaknesses because then you can focus on your strengths.

Remember to let them know that they are amazing and that the company they run is developing more than great employees.

Yours truly,

Shruti.