A trainer's reputation lives or dies by the happy sheets following an training event.
H is for Happy Sheets
Most training events finishes with the ubiquitous happy sheet, the Level 1 of Kirpatricks Training Evaluation, which in real terms, is a measure of the rapport the delegates had with their trainer.
The happy sheets comes in all shapes and sizes, asking an array of
questions, to gauge the learning experience of the delegate post
training event. For a trainer the comments left can sometimes leave you
scratching your head, and that's not just down to the handwriting and spelling.
One delegates' excellent training session can sometimes be anothers training nightmare. In the past I have delivered training sessions, where everything has gone wrong and things have not worked and/or crashed, and the delegates have rated me and my training excellent. There have been other times when I have felt that I have over delivered the training session, and just received good and/or average scores. There seems to be a worrying trend emerging from training companies and organisation, who are using the feedback from the happy sheets to withhold payment on courses, when the delegates have marked them below 7 or 8 on a scale of 10.
Most of these happy sheets, do not ask the delegates why they have marked the trainer in a certain way, and therefore there is no justification given for such marks.
There could be a number of reasons, not just the fact that the trainer was lousy, that ranges from the room being too cold and/or too bright, to the fact that the biscuits were stale.
I remember one case years ago where the training company had reversed the scale, and the delegates had not read the evaluation sheet properly, until the follow up team read the comments and the marks, and called the client back that they realised the issue.
For me personally I am more interested in negative comments, as I don't get them that often, rather than the positives, as this provides me with the insight into how I can improve not only the training delivery, but also the whole training experience, for my clients.
As a freelance IT trainer one cannot stand still and become complacent, you have to be ahead of the game, innovate and reinvigorate your training.
I would like to hear your comments, experience, opinions and thoughts about this subject, please drop me a line or two below:
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