How Does Train the Trainer Work?

A post from our Training and Coaching blog

We've all heard how important it is to train staff, but what about training the staff who train the staff?

According to the Education Resources Information Center, the Train the Trainer approach involves training one person who, in turn, trains other people. This way, when a training session is completed, a ripple effect is generated throughout the business. As the new skills disseminate and more people are trained, productivity and profits increase.

The organizational benefits of the model has led to its adoption in many industries, from healthcare to the corporate world. It just makes sense. Why train only one individual when you can build a pool of competent trainers?

Enlisting the services of external trainers allows in-house trainers to gain a fresh perspective. Combine this with their existing knowledge of their business and they can create more effective training programmes.

What Does It Include?

Unfortunately, there is no single Train the Trainer course. Some training companies may have a single day course, while others have a week long course.

It stands to reason that courses ranging anything from one to five days will cover vastly different content.

During a good Train the Trainer course, a trainer isn't just telling participants what to teach; they show them how to teach too. In-house trainers learn how to listen actively and with empathy, how to convey ideas, and how to craft courses that staff can understand easily.

In a typical good Train the Trainer course, participants learn:

• how to apply adult learning theory principles during training
• how to respond to participant questions
• and how to design group activities that reinforce learning
• They will also learn how to design and set up manuals or hand outs that each trainee can be given at the training, to be used after the training to ensure that learnt material is absorbed and implemented.

How ZandaX Can Help

Ready to improve your skills, but not sure where to start? ZandaX has got you covered. We teach four Train the Trainer courses, covering everything from the basics to more advanced concepts.

Our most popular course is the intensive one-day Fast Track course. Serving as an introduction to training, the course covers the major elements of training. Delegates are taught essential training skills including communication, presentation, and questioning.



Other modules show participants how to encourage trainee participation, when to add humour, and how to deal with difficult trainees. This course is ideal for new trainers or trainers looking for a refresher course.

It's also the perfect course for companies that need their trainer to have obtained a general Train the Trainer certificate. For example, you may need your internal trainer to have a certificate in order for you as an organization to be able to obtain certain kinds of insurance. You may have a competent internal trainer, who has just never obtained a certificate. More often than not, this course meets those requirements, but there are the odd exceptions to that rule, laid down in certain industries.

We also run the Developing a Structured Training Programme course. This one-day workshop teaches participants how to develop practical programmes that are beneficial to the business.

Here, delegates learn how to:

• recognise when training is needed
• define clear training objectives
• determine what type of content to use in training
• evaluate participant feedback.

This course is recommended for experienced trainers and human resource managers. They may have experience at delivering training (often even many years of experience!), but none at actually designing the content and outcomes from scratch.

A typical situation in which this may arise is the trainer who delivers the organization's induction course. That course may have been going from before that person took over, so all that they have done is continued to deliver an existing course, rather than develop a new one? Well, as times change, can they successfully update that course?

A good summary of this course is look at "What to Teach".



Our Delivering an Effective Training Session course helps delegates come up with a plan for creating enjoyable yet effective training courses. Dealing with a difficult delegate? Module 12 has the professional solution for you. PowerPoint, flip charts, models or handouts; not sure which visual aids to use? We have an entire module dedicated to understanding which visual aids to use in different scenarios.

This workshop is recommended for trainers who want to improve their delivery skills, and make the courses they run more enjoyable and productive.

A good summary for this course is "How to Teach".

They say success leaves clues, right? Our Being an Effective Trainer workshop is designed to help trainers model success. Participants study the characteristics of effective trainers, the different types of trainer styles, and work on developing their own. To test its efficacy, participants also get the chance to practice their skills in a supportive environment.

The one-day workshop is recommended for new and current trainers who want to achieve better results from their training.

A good summary of this course is "What Makes a Good Trainer?"

Each of these courses can be delivered on-site at any of our training centres, or in your office. With each Train the Trainer course, delegates also have access to free eLearning revision after the course.

If delivering an onsite training course to a group of staff that you intend to become trainers, ZandaX can also bespoke the course by taking modules out of any of these three courses, and also has four additional modules available, that can also be included. That way, you give the staff you want trained the elements that they actually require.

An old Chinese proverb says "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to catch fish and you feed him for a lifetime". The Train the Trainer model has been likened to teaching a man how to fish. When you train one trainer well enough, they can train many more within their business.

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