So I sat through two days of Teams training last week, just about the only upside was the fact that I was paid to sit through it.
It was another classic case of two days of being talked at, literally for 90% of the time with only one 10 minute break out session and around 30 mins of Q and Q based around a homework on the second day, which ended up being dominated by about 5 people, out of a class of two dozen.
I mean you don't need a teaching qualification to be able to tell when training is just bloody awful, but the qualification and the experience help you to know why...
Just talking at people doesn't = training!
Egos allowed to run...
This started in the first 10 minutes during introductions, with one person spending about 3 minutes telling us about where he got is two degrees and PhD from and then a run through of his work history. The brief was to tell us how long we'd been working for the company and what projects we worked on.
ONE (there were three) of the session supervisors should have shut him down, I took my headphones off after one minute (camera was on), but he was allowed to carry on.
Bad start.
Especially when it's a job that doesn't even require you to have a degree. In fact having a PhD is probably terrible as the job does require a level of empathy and being able to relate to people. The session leaders may as well have let people spend 3 minutes each banging on about their Park Run times, what they're kids like doing, or baking triumphs, all of which have as much bearing on our ability to do the job as this guy's academic history.
30 mins to an hour wasted fielding individual questions...
Mainly because there were people on the course who should've been on a shorter version because they were more experienced, and then lots of time spent with a handful of very new people answering questions that should've been covered in more general training sessions.
This was primarily responsible for....
Not sticking to the pledged break times
Just about the worst mistake you can make when running a training session, not sticking to your schedule.
OK if there is a valid reason such as a discussion involving everyone hots up, but that wasn't the case here, it was other wrong stuff that made this happen, so we had 10 minute breaks, not 15 and a 30 minute lunch break.
Not enough!
Being talked at for 90 minutes....
OK maybe this is worse than the one above. At one point we were demoed a practice interview which for the most part was simple, but with just a very few really important technical things in, all of which got lost in the tedium.
I found this out when I practiced on my own, I figured it out, but I think I actually nodded off at one point and missed something important!
Too detailed homework which should have been reinforcement
Homework at the end of day one was to read through a 50 page document of definitions and find finicky answers to detailed questions.
POINTLESS...
JUST TELL US THE EXCEPTIONS FIRST, THEN GIVE US THIS AS REFINFORCEMENT.
I should have just not done that homework, many of the answers were provided on day 2 anyway, and then we Q and Ad through the quiz at the end.
A hench exercise like that is great to reinforce, NOT to introduce.
Insufficient inclusivity
As I mentioned a few people dominated, same old voices over the two days again and again. I'm not exactly shy when it comes to chipping in during training sessions, I prefer being active, but I gave up towards the end of day 2 as I couldn't get my voice in before the same old 2 or 3 real keanos.
Honestly, there were two or three sessions supervisors, this wasn't even mentioned.
But I did get paid!
OK I would say this could've been done in a day, it could have, but then again I got paid to sit through it, cameras were allowed to be off.
So at the end of the day it was easy money, and I did pick up on a few necessaries!
And there's defo a job with this company for me somewhere down the line - I actually know how to deliver training!