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Trainer Burnout
Practical Steps to Help Combat Trainer Burnout
Excerpts from Easytraining.com Newsletter Issue # 106
September 27, 2010
All content
copyright of Claire
Belilos
CHIC
Hospitality Consulting Services, http://www.easytraining.com
CHIC Hospitality Consulting Services is located in Vancouver, B.C. Canada
We are in no way related to other companies or web sites of similar names
**********************************************************
ISSN 1499-8076 Easytraining.com News Vol.1, No. 106
Trainer Burnout
**********************************************************
September 27, 2010 - Copyright Claire Belilos
CHIC Hospitality Consulting Services -
contact and subscribe at http://www.easytraining.com/easynews.htm
I. Welcome to new Subscribers
II. TRAINER BURNOUT
III. PERMISSIONS
I. WELCOME
----------------------------
A warm welcome to new subscribers. I look forward to knowing you better.
The
newsletter format may differ from issue to issue, i.e. sometimes just
drawing your attention to some issue, and sometimes more
detailed. I hope you will find some practical value in it.
Please
note that if ever you wish to advise of a change in your email address,
you must provide me with the email under which you originally
subscribed, which you can see at the bottom of the newsletter you
receive. Thank you.
NOTE: The last paragraph of this newsletter contains our usual “permissions” regarding this content.
In
our previous newsletter, I reminded subscribers to ask themselves and
the people around them, such as peers and/or trainees, these questions
when planning some action:
a) How does this benefit the organization?
b) How does this benefit the customer?
c) How does this benefit both managers/supervisors and employees?
And, following this, to ask themselves and others, additional questions, before making a final decision and taking action:
a) Would this have detrimental effects on the organization?
b) Would this affect customers badly?
c) Would this have adverse effects on managers/supervisors and/or employees?
For
this issue, I thought to bring up the subject of Trainer burnout,
similar to the burnout teachers (instructors) often experience,
especially when teaching the same subject to different groups of people.
II. TRAINER BURNOUT
--------------------------
Few
trainers are ready to acknowledge the fact that they suffer from
burnout, leading to a noticeable drop in the quality of their training
and the effectiveness of training.
But trainer burnout
definitely exists. Ask any nurse or headwaiter. It
happens to all trainers, however high in the organizational hierarchy.
I will not give here advice, which you yourself must already have thought of to solve your problems.
However, I can give practical examples of how I myself fought this when I was Training Manager at the Jerusalem Hilton.
I.
First of all, I did not consider Training as a subject per se, but
considered it as an integral heartbeat of the organization. I
changed the concept from “Training” to “Training and Development”, thus
expanding my scope of involvement and activities.
I turned the
function to that of becoming an integral part of the management team
who planned on how to meat all sorts of organizational challenges,
including Marketing, Sales, Safety, Security, and even Budgeting.
This most certainly kept the juices flowing and made me a better
Training Manager since I could share the insights acquired with the
many different departmental trainers, management trainees, and all
other trainees.
II. When I felt overwhelmed, or stuck,
I gave myself “time out”, a breather. I used listless days
as the perfect time to plan something new and good for the
organization and the different departments (a new approach to some
subjects), and to plan a new training strategy to help specific
individuals to advance within the organization (e.g. customized
cross-training programs). I also planned to take steps for
personal self-growth.
If I felt that my work days
did not enable full concentration to do all this planning effectively,
I asked the General Manager to give me a couple of paid days off so I
could think, plan, and work from home for this purpose. I made
sure that such off-site days were just before the weekend so that my
mind would be free of the daily grind for a more extended period,
enabling me to come back to work mentally refreshed, with many new
training and problem-solving strategies in hand.
III.
Another strategy I used to combat burnout was to use other people in
the organization to conduct, occasionally, certain activities instead
of doing so myself, e.g. one of the management trainees conducting the
new employee orientation day. I did not abdicate this function,
but attended such sessions, sitting among the trainees, supporting my
interim replacement if needed. It goes without saying that the
interim replacements I used for such purposes knew both the subjects
and the spirit of the activity very well, and were seriously excited at
the prospect of taking the role of facilitator.
IV. I
did the same with a wide spectrum of department heads, line managers,
and rank-and-file employees. Since I knew their unique gifts, I
asked certain people to conduct lessons on a subject in which they
excelled. They genuinely loved teaching a group of people
and prepared excellent lessons (some, with my prior help).
V.
I organized professional field trips to sister hotels and our
suppliers. These were well-prepared with the receiving
party. Needless to say that all those who participated enjoyed
these field trips enormously.
VI. I attended and
participated in training activities conducted by others in the
organization. This helped me keep motivated and gave rise to new
ideas.
VII. I brought in outside experts to offer
(usually free) training to specific groups of department heads, line
supervisors, and employees, e.g. Etiquette for the supervisory level,
or interior decor for housekeeping personnel, Credit Card processing
for Front Desk Agents, etc.
VIII. We often had video
presentations on all sorts of subjects, e.g. team work, customer
service, handling customer complaints, sanitation, safety &
security, and so forth, followed by discussions, which everyone enjoyed
and learned from.
The above strategies not only helped me
eradicate trainer burnout, but, due to their variety, kept everyone in
the organization refreshed and excited about any type of scheduled
training. Big and small, they actually came to me saying “Miss
Claire, It would be good if we also have a lesson on ...........
(subject)”, or asked me eagerly “When is our next lesson?”
I
hope that these tips will help you combat burnout. If you use a
strategy not mentioned above, please share it with us. And do
share with us your thoughts and experiences on the subject of training
burnout.
Thank you for your attention.
Claire Belilos, Copyright September 27, 2010
III. PERMISSIONS
-------------------
Commercial
use of this newsletter is not allowed. If you wish to be able to
make commercial use of it, please contact me for licensing
rights. You June forward this newsletter by e-mail to others “as
is” as a communication unto itself, with all headers, footnotes, and
copyright notices intact, including my name and all details (top
and bottom; just use the “forward” button in your email box).
However, the distribution can only be free of charge and not against
payment and not in a newsletter or service which charges membership and
fees for the reading of content. This newsletter should not be
featured on any web site, be it a corporate intranet, membership
restricted site, or public site, or translated or distributed in any
other form, without specific permission from the undersigned, i.e.
myself.
If professional friends or colleagues of yours like the newsletter, please encourage them to subscribe directly at http://www.easytraining.com/easynews.htm
Claire Belilos
September 27th, 2010 - Copyright Claire Belilos
ISSN 1499-8076 - This publication is registered with the National Library of Canada and is published by
Claire Belilos, Management Consultant and Training Specialist
CHIC Hospitality Consulting Company
Offering custom-tailored solutions to
management and performance problems
Home Page: http//www. easytraining.com
Contact for Newsletter http://www.easytraining.com/easynews.htm
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