Corporate training is a major component in the engine that runs most HR programs and helps them achieve their goals of keeping their teams educated and enabled to perform at their highest levels.
Some small companies have individuals who perform multiple tasks, including training, and some others assign different training to different personnel, but large-scale companies staff corporate trainers whose sole responsibility is knowing what employees need to be informed about and taking necessary actions to do the informing.
This information can be company-related, such as policies passed down from the C-suite to all of the branches that employees need to be aware of, but it is also often just information to help make team members become more well-rounded individuals. Some examples of the latter would include workplace diversity training or cultural awareness.
Oftentimes, training sessions held on subjects like these are reactive in nature, following an incident at work, but the best corporate trainers are proactive and identify trends in society that may become issues in the workplace.
In addition to staffed corporate trainers, many individuals are taking their skills to the gig economy and providing training services to many different companies. One of the silver linings of the COVID pandemic was a technological boom for internet-based communication and file sharing via the cloud, and these types of training are expected to be popular long after the pandemic has subsided (as is the remote work that caused the boom).
Generally, freelance corporate trainers need to have some experience in the office world, but regardless of your endgame, the path to being a corporate trainer is more or less the same. Here’s a closer look.
Education
As the name suggests, corporate trainers need to have education in business, and, generally speaking, a bachelor’s is required. However, individuals with postsecondary studies in education, social science, and psychology who have experience working in the corporate world could also qualify for most corporate training positions.
Some industries require much stricter adherence to guidelines and regulations, such as those in healthcare and finance, so most individuals who become trainers in these fields do, indeed, have experiences working the jobs that the individuals they train now have.
Corporate sustainability is another focus of many corporate training sessions, and depending on the size of a given company, they may hire people whose sole purpose is training on environmental and social sustainability and how employees can help the company become more environmentally friendly (which can mean big tax breaks, too, from a bottom line standpoint).
Soft Skills
Being a people person is almost a necessity in corporate training. The harsh truth is: not everyone is going to be excited about attending a training session, or being assigned a self-paced module with a due date. However, corporate trainers who have the ability to engage and encourage even when delivering the most mundane information excel in this career, and their teams are better educated.
Creativity and tech-savviness are also important, especially in a post-pandemic world that is expected to see huge numbers of employees who opt to continue working from home. Being able to make a remote work relationship feel like an in-person one is no easy task, but the best corporate trainers are able to do so.
Technology is often their best friend in these scenarios, and the ability to create content much more engaging than a click-through session is easier than it has ever been.
Future of Corporate Training
Companies continue to become more and more focused on inclusiveness, fair treatment, and employee happiness, and all of these things begin with training. For those industries with a lot of regulations, there are expected to be more and more, especially related to green initiatives, and aspiring trainers should educate themselves on those things.
Ultimately, the aforementioned tech-savviness will serve as the corporate trainer’s best friend in the post-pandemic world.
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