Sending your best and brightest employees off to spend an unspecified amount of time training apprentices can put a strain on any business. Without a proper plan and idea for the trip, there is no way of knowing if all goals have been accomplished in the time they spent there. By setting clear goals and having each hour of their trip planned, you can maximize your employee’s valuable time as well as create more knowledgeable and better trained new employees.
Create Goals
No trainer should travel to a new place without a clear, concise list of goals to guide them in teaching the new apprentice. If you don’t already have a clear understanding of what your apprentice needs to learn, there will be wasted time figuring that point out. Identify which skills should be learned before your trainer boards the plane and create a knowledgeable, ready pupil for him.
Prioritize
There should be a comprehensive list of what order things need to be taught to your new employee. Time should not be wasted going back and forth trying to decide which is most important. You should have a list to emphasize what elements are the most important to learn first and when other things should be taught.
Resources
References should be available for your new employee to study prior to and following their training. They should have plenty of follow-up information to help them utilize everything they learned during their training experience. Be sure to get feedback from your trainees about what was helpful in their learning process. Should you add more resources? Were some things reiterated too much? Was any time wasted?
Send the Right Expert
Many companies simply send the employee that is ready and willing. This can be a mistake for many reasons. Often, the most ready employee is not necessarily the one best equipped for training. The amount of resources being expended in the sending of your valued employee should not be wasted on someone who is not suitable for teaching. Be sure you are sending the best expert you can, and they are teaching something they are well-versed in and able to communicate.
Test Knowledge
Without any final evaluation to ensure your apprentice is adequately prepared, you will have no way of knowing whether the business trip was a worthwhile endeavor or not. By testing your apprentices, they should feel comfortable enough in their knowledge to recite it back, and you will feel like your resources were well spent in adding that valuable, new employee to your company. If you have a very bright apprentice who learns more quickly, it may be possible to expedite the trip and have your trainer returned home faster, saving more resources.