Don't be afraid to call yourself a trainer

Don't be afraid to call yourself a trainer: Source Link
by Clive Shepherd

The word 'training' is unfashionable, so much so that at one recent conference it was referred to as 'the T word'. As a result, just about every self-respecting trainer has been relabelled with a title that centres on 'the L word' (whether or not their role has changed or not). Yet when I first entered the profession I was perfectly happy to be called a Training Specialist. Actually, I was probably much more a learning architect than a training specialist, because I was encouraged to play an active role in just about all aspects of learning and development at work, but training was the word we used back then and I was OK with that, because that was the norm.

Of course, training is just one of many inputs that can be applied to vocational learning, alongside experiential learning, self-directed learning and all forms of connected and collaborative learning. But it is the most structured and the most deliberate of all these and probably has the most predictable consequences. For complete novices it is probably essential in one form or another, on or off-job. Training cannot guarantee learning, because learning in the end is the prerogative of the learner, but it can have a pretty good try.

In a 2004 CIPD research report, Helping people learn: strategies for moving from training to learning, Reynolds wrote:

‘Training has a tendency to react to present needs, rather than build capabilities for the future; to transfer large amounts of information rather than build on the knowledge of participants; to remain detached from the context in which work is produced; and to lack the supporting processes needed to put new ideas into practice’ (Reynolds 2004).

The key word here is 'tendency'. Yes, much training misses the mark but there is, of course, a great deal of fantastic, life-changing training out there, just as there is some pretty incredible teaching (which for some reason does not suffer from the same stigma). If training is what you do day in, day out and you have little in the way of responsibility for other inputs to workplace learning then be proud to call yourself a trainer.