Effective Training Methods: Coaching, Mentoring, and More

Posted on Nov 30, 2024 in Other subjects

  • Explain these training methods: Coaching, Mentoring, Job Rotation, and Development Centre.Coaching is a method of directing, instructing, and training a person or group, with the aim of achieving some goal or developing specific skills. There are many methods and types of coaching. Among their techniques may include motivational speaking, seminars, workshops, and supervised practice. The process basically requires the following 7 steps:
    1. Note: The key observation is that the trainee finds solutions. From the location at new points of view and observation of the paradigms, beliefs, and behaviors that are practiced, the person can choose between alternatives that will support building the results you want.
    2. Awareness: The observation allows awareness, basically about our power of choice. The coach will focus the ward on the choices to take and the consequences they create, giving you specific tools to more effectively select and choose consciously.
    3. Determination of Goals: This is essential to any coaching process, having clearly defined objectives. This is the crucial step towards achieving them and will guide decisions and actions.
    4. Action: Once all the information is gathered, we must act in a sustained manner over time. The coach will accompany this process closely to overcome difficulties that often appear in the implementation.
    5. Measure: At all times, it is essential to check if we are moving towards or away from the target. This will take corrective action and thus contribute to achieving the gains sought.
    6. Committed Action: All coaching processes conclude with committed action aligned with the predetermined plan of action between coach and client.
    7. Encourage Your Listeners: This is vital for maintaining motivation.
    Types of Coaching:
    • Personal Coaching
    • Executive Coaching
    • Business Coaching
    • Career Coaching
    • Self Coaching
    • Sport Coaching
    • Virtual Coaching
    MENTORING refers to a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The receiver of mentorship was traditionally referred to as a protégé or apprentice, but with the institutionalization of mentoring, the more neutral word “mentee” was invented and is widely used today. Another definition would be: “Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less.” Since the focus of mentoring is to develop the whole person, the techniques are broad and require wisdom in order to be used appropriately.
    1. Accompanying: This means making a commitment in a caring way. Accompanying involves taking part in the learning process by taking the path with the learner.
    2. Sowing: Mentors are often confronted with the difficulty of preparing the learner before he or she is ready to change. Sowing is necessary when you know that what you say may not be understood or even acceptable to learners at first but will make sense and have value to the mentee when the situation requires it.
    3. Catalyzing: When change reaches a critical level of pressure, learning can jump. Here the mentor chooses to plunge the learner right into change, provoking a different way of thinking, a change in identity, or a re-ordering of values.
    4. Showing: This is making something understandable, or using your own example to demonstrate a skill or activity. You show what you are talking about, you show by your own behavior.
    5. Harvesting: Here the mentor focuses on “picking the ripe fruit”: it is usually learned to create awareness of what was learned by experience and to draw conclusions. The key questions here are: “What have you learned?” “How useful is it?”
    JOB ROTATION is an approach to management development where an individual is moved through a schedule of assignments designed to give him or her a breadth of exposure to the entire operation. Job rotation is also practiced to allow qualified employees to gain more insights into the processes of a company, and to reduce boredom and increase job satisfaction through job variation. The term job rotation can also mean the scheduled exchange of persons in offices, especially in public offices, prior to the end of incumbency or the legislative period. This has been practiced by the German Green Party for some time but has been discontinued.When to Use It:
    • To broaden an individual’s knowledge of other functions and departments in the organization.
    • To prepare an individual for career advancement.
    • To maximize an individual’s exposure to customers by moving him or her into positions that require customer interaction.
    • To motivate and challenge an individual who has been on a job for a long time.
    • To cross-train members of a team.
    A number of studies address the positive impact of variation and pauses during work, but few studies have dealt with actual job rotation. However, several job rotation case studies were found in the literature. These studies came from the United States, Japan, and Sweden and covered a variety of industries. The following benefits were noted among them:
    • Reduced boredom
    • Reduced work stress
    • Increased innovation
    • Increased free time activity
    • Reduced CTDs
    • Increased production
    • Reduced absenteeism
    • Reduced turnover
    Several of the same case studies noted difficulties in implementing job rotation. Most of these difficulties came from the challenge of changing the work structure and not from the job rotation itself. The following problems were noted:
    • Experienced workers not wanting to learn new types of work.
    • Machine operators not wanting to “lend” their machines to others.
    • Practical problems of physically getting from one job to the next.
    • Unsuitable wage forms.
    • Education and training of workers for new jobs.
    • Difficulties in finding appropriate jobs to rotate to.
    • Inappropriate use of job rotation by management.
    DEVELOPMENT CENTRE is a method in which participants are actively involved in the assessment of their own and others’ behaviors as part of their professional development. The preparation for a Development Centre will follow the same approach as that for an assessment centre, and specific preparation relevant to any internal promotional activity is discussed in greater detail in later chapters.General Characteristics:
    • Are geared towards developing the individual.
    • Address a longer-term need.
    • Have a greater emphasis placed on self-assessment.
    • Place emphasis on developmental feedback and follow-up with little or no selection function.
    • Are geared to meet the needs of the individual as well as the organization.
    Differences Between Development Centre and Assessment Centre: An assessment centre should be used for selection purposes, while a development centre is for personal development leading to team and organizational development. In a development centre, the candidates are not in a pass or fail situation, unlike an assessment centre. The role of the assessors in a development centre is focused more on facilitation and identification of the competencies that participants need to acquire or develop.Do You Know Any Model for Evaluating Effectiveness of Training Programs?Why Measure Training Effectiveness? Measuring the effectiveness of training programs consumes valuable time and resources. As we know all too well, these things are in short supply in organizations today. Why should we bother? Many training programs fail to deliver the expected organizational benefits. Having a well-structured measuring system in place can help you determine where the problem lies. On a positive note, being able to demonstrate a real and significant benefit to your organization from the training you provide can help you gain more resources from important decision-makers. Consider also that the business environment is not standing still. Your competitors, technology, legislation, and regulations are constantly changing. What was a successful training program yesterday may not be a cost-effective program tomorrow. Being able to measure results will help you adapt to such changing circumstances.The Kirkpatrick Model: The most well-known and used model for measuring the effectiveness of training programs was developed by Donald Kirkpatrick in the late 1950s. It has since been adapted and modified by a number of writers; however, the basic structure has well stood the test of time. The basic structure of Kirkpatrick’s four-level model is shown here. An evaluation at each level answers whether a fundamental requirement of the training program was met. It’s not that conducting an evaluation at one level is more important than another. All levels of evaluation are important. In fact, the Kirkpatrick model explains the usefulness of performing training evaluations at each level. Each level provides a diagnostic checkpoint for problems at the succeeding level.How Do You Conduct a Training Evaluation? Here is a quick overview of some appropriate information sources for each level:
    1. Level 1 (Reaction): How did participants react to the program?
      • Completed participant feedback questionnaire
      • Informal comments from participants
      • Focus group sessions with participants
    2. Level 2 (Learning): To what extent did participants improve knowledge and skills and change attitudes as a result of the training?
      • Pre- and post-test scores
      • On-the-job assessments
      • Supervisor reports
    3. Level 3 (Behavior): To what extent did participants change their behavior back in the workplace as a result of the training?
      • Completed self-assessment questionnaire
      • On-the-job observation
      • Reports from customers, peers, and participant’s manager
    4. Level 4 (Results): What organizational benefits resulted from the training?
      • Financial reports
      • Quality inspections
      • Interviews with sales managers