Most of us have had to participate in some type of training on our jobs, such as

Question

Most of us have had to participate in some type of training on our jobs, such as new employee orientation, lunch-and-learn workshops, Employee Assistance Program training, technical skill training, employee benefits update meetings, or management development workshops. Some of us have experienced on-the-job training. Others have participated in professional development workshops or skills-based continuing education classes. Think about the best and worst training experiences you have had. YOUR ASSIGNMENT Write an 8-10 page essay (not including cover and reference pages) analyzing both your best and worst training experiences as an employee. Be specific in discussing what made the experiences good or bad.

Explanation / Answer

I have been working for around 2.4 years now. I still remember the excitement that I felt when they I walked into the company campus for the first time. It is almost a religious experience one feels when starting their first job- the wide-eyed look of amazement, the eager way one looks forward to learning all that can be taught, the bliss when you ace any part of your training tests… it is a one of a kind experience indeed.

In the course of my work, I have attended many, many trainings- ranging from employee orientation to technical skill training to management development workshops. Each of them- whether good or bad- was informative in its own way and I feel that I learned something from each of them that I could somehow relate to my work. Admittedly, there were some trainings that were not at all helpful as there was no learning to be taken home from them, but I know that it was not something the organizer would have wanted when the training was scheduled- unfortunately though, this happens to the best of us and there is nothing to be done, but pick ourselves up, dust off and carry on.

I work as a financial analyst so the trainings I received were more focused on the technical side – the software on which I would be working and how to operate that and the dos and don’ts of it, and also on the management side- we were trained as to how one should handle a team, and how to work in a team, and how to make sure that it stays cohesive.

My best training experience

In my experience, the best training that I attended was one where the trainer had an itinerary planned and was confident in her approach to train us. It started early in the morning (around nine or so) and we were a batch of around 120 new joinees or so. We were either huddled together in small groups or standing by ourselves, not really chatting to one another as we did not know most of the people, wondering what the 8-hour long session would contain. I was already dreading it to be honest. But then, a smartly dressed woman walked in and greeted us all enthusiastically. Her energy level surprised me- I had not expected such a strong voice and powerful delivery from someone who looked so demure.

My instructor then went around the hall asking us all to introduce ourselves and also to include one line about where we were from and what our educational background was. It seems tedious (in a batch that big, it is time consuming), but this sort of introduction acted as an ice-breaker for us. People came to know about one another- few making connections to their state of origin or their alma mater etc. It was a relaxed group that faced the instructor mere minutes later. She seemed really happy with this and it showed- she started talking about the way teams should interact, and the way people can connect and so on. The session flowed.

When it was time to break for lunch we were all amazed at how the time had passed by so quickly- it was that good a session. Soon we came back from lunch, and our instructor made us pair off in teams and made us play team-games in order to shake off the lunch-hour lethargy.

We played games ranging from testing which team could build the tallest free-standing structure from paper to solving case-files. The structure building game was the best as it challenged the team to discuss and come up with solution in a limited period of time. The team has to work together in this sort of situation- each member is important and their inputs are valuable as ideas need to be pitched fast and discussed and approved or discarded as a team. The team has to rise to the occasion, and keep in mind that this is a team who did not even know each-other’s names hours ago- but it really challenges people to stretch their minds. They also need to be quick on their feet as we unfortunately were not because minutes after we built our tall structure, it collapsed due to a minor mistake – which had it been rectified in time, would have won us the first place.

Anyways, all in all, it was a happy group who disbursed after the 8-hour long session which each of us had been secretly dreading but were now all praises for.

I think this successful training session happened only due to the positive attitude of the trainer. She was chipper, radiated energy and love for her job, made us feel welcomed and connected to each other, and in the end gave us all something that we were pleased about.

The best things about this training experience were:

My worst training experience

Coming to my worst training experience, it was a four-hour long telephonic training that was scheduled for seven days daily.

Now this was a technical training on a new software that had been implemented for our client which we had integrated with our existing software. The instructor was a woman who had been working on this integration for a good part of the year and it was a successful go-live which the clients had signed-off on happily. After a go-live of any project, a Knowledge Transfer session happens which is when the project lead will inform to the rest of the other teams who have not worked on the project, how to use the new functionality. This is needed as the others will not know how the integration was done and how it will work.

So, the team lead started the call and we all joined through the bridge. She started sharing her screen and we all were able to see it and the session started. Now the way the lead was talking was in such a way that it was sleep-inducing. She was not able to keep my attention even for five minutes- my mind kept wandering back to my other work and I had to force myself to concentrate on what she was saying.

All of a sudden, I could no longer hear her. She had bad reception in her area it seems and so was not able to connect without disturbance. She did not realize this and was carrying on with her presentation and she had to be pinged repeatedly for her to realize that she got disconnected. This continued to happen on all seven days of the KT session. Also, even though the presentation seemed lucid enough, still it was too technical for us and our instructor was not explaining it in enough detail- so very little could be understood from a layman’s perspective.

Unfortunately for the team lead, though the intentions were good, and idea behind the presentation was also good, and the presentation was excellently made as well- but the mode of delivery was all wrong. First, she was not able to catch the listener’s attention. Second, she kept getting disconnected. Third, the topic, though interesting, was made boring simply because the hour picked for the KT was just after lunch hour and trust me, no one wants to hear someone droning away in their ear-pieces just after lunch. Fourth and lastly, since there was very little interaction with the team, it was not an engaging session at all.

So, listing down why this was my worst training ever-

So, these are my best and worst training experiences.

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