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	Did you know... Hidden Treasures: Look Inside Your Firm for Expert Trainers Reviewing & Revising Staff Writing Merge With Care

Hidden Treasures: Look Inside Your Firm for Expert Trainers

There is something about bringing an outside trainer or consultant into an organization that instantly makes her an expert. Regardless of the person's educational background, experience, credentials or personality, the mere fact that the outsider is an outsider seems to position her as a specialist in her field. By looking inside your organization for talented professionals, you will be able to harvest your own competent experts and save your firm thousands of dollars in outside consulting fees. But how do you ensure that your employee trainers will deliver a high-quality, well-organized, and informative session? After all, unlike your outside trainers, these employees probably have not had much experience in education and curriculum development. To guarantee the success of your internal training initiative, consider these three suggestions: 1. CREATE A TRAINING PLAN: Meet with your employee trainer one-on-one to plan the scope of the training and talk about the content areas that should be covered. Once you have a better sense of the topics included in the training, ask the trainer to research his topic more closely and create a detailed training outline, complete with the time allocated to discuss each topic. Make certain that the outline has a stated training objective written at the top, as well as two or three bullet points highlighting the most important "take-aways" from the training. With the trainer, brainstorm various training strategies, such as a small group discussion exercise, a case study analysis, and the proper mixture of lecture, anecdote and discussion. 2. ORGANIZE A DRY-RUN: Encourage your trainer to walk through a dry-run of his notes to familiarize himself with use of the laptop for a presentation and allow him to visualize his audience. If the trainer could use some presentation skills training, consider videotaping the dry-run of his lesson plan to allow him to see areas where he could improve. 3. CONSIDER TRAINING THE TRAINERS: In the long-run, a properly constructed internal training program will save your firm thousands of dollars and hours of aggravation, and you will find that your internal training programs empower your employees and encourage effective knowledge-sharing. If you plan to organize a cadre of employee trainers to kick-off your internal training program, you may find it worthwhile to offer a train-the-trainer workshop for your employees. This could save you time and help your trainers develop necessary skills. We all know that our employees are our greatest asset. Now let's start using them as such! »

Reviewing & Revising Staff Writing

Are you ever frustrated by staff writing and documentation that is not at the level you expect? Many managers express aggravation at staff writing that is informal, disorganized, and filled with grammatical mistakes. While sending your employees to an Effective Business Writing workshop may be helpful, we know that most training occurs on-the-job. Why not provide your managers with the tools they need to offer real-time feedback on their employees' business writing? Consider offering a brief training session that helps managers learn revision strategies to get the work product they want while helping their staff people to develop communication skills. If you don't have the time to create a training program for your company, you may consider Point of Action's customized workshop on "Reviewing & Revising Staff Writing." »

Merge With Care

*** CPA firms that are merging face many opportunities and challenges. Click on the article link below for a 10-step plan to ensure that your firm merger is a success. Article Link... »