Many organizations today don't value training as an integral part of their capability development. In fact, not many organizations have a dedicated training department. This then becomes a huge challenge to a company's growth only because training is a team that imparts knowledge, builds skills, and motivates employee engagement. The usual scenario is that there's no training department or if there's one, they're the last people to learn. When was the last time these trainers were trained? When was the last time they attended a training seminar for trainers?
In theory, the training department and trainers in them are "key enablers" of the business. If there are performance gaps, who are you going to call for a root cause analysis leading to a training needs assessment? Who is going to design training programs and develop materials to support learning? Who will deliver training programs that will create an impact? And who is going to evaluate the learning effectiveness of these programs?
Many think that trainers only implement a curriculum, deliver sessions, and present PowerPoint presentations. What many don't realize is the impact that a training team can make! Serious trainers typically use CADDIE as their guide to effectively fulfill the duties of the learning function. It is important that all trainers understand CADDIE and how to use it in their daily job. If they don't, it might be high time that they get sent to a train-the-trainer program or a training seminar for trainers focusing on the learning function.
So what does CADDIE exactly mean? While mainly categorized as an "Instructional Design" model because it is used by instructional system designers when designing a program, CADDIE has become a well-rounded term to mean "the training cycle." What does CADDIE stand for and how does it relate to training and trainers?
- C - onsult
- A - nalyze
- D - esign
- D - evelopment
- I - mplement
- E - valuate
Consult and Analyze
Many learning programs today start with a PowerPoint design even without taking a closer look at the actual needs of the target learners. This is a costly mistake to the learning department and the organization, because without assessing the needs and analyzing the root cause of performance gaps, your program may not be very effective or worst, meaningless and irrelevant at all to the target audience. Bay Hewitt can help your trainers how to systematize the root cause analysis process that leads to an effective and efficient training needs analysis system. They will learn how to use different tools that will make their analyst role easier.
Design and Development
Many trainers and facilitators today are experts on presentation skills and training delivery but the other areas of the full training cycle are left unexplored. The two D's in CADDIE stand for Design and Development. Guilty as we may be, when asked to run training, trainers only create PowerPoint presentations and assessments without completely outlining the learning objectives and outcomes of a program in a curriculum content design document. What's wrong with that? The trainers and trainees go into an aimless exercise of learning without truly understanding the end goals of a learning program; in addition, the training is un-documented and therefore becomes hard for other facilitators to replicate. Also, if the program does not have its specific topics, timelines, and methodologies spelled out, the trainer can just go free hand that could compromise learning quality.
Implement
It goes without saying that trainers have a very important influence on their trainees. More often than not, learners retain what’s taught in training and imitate or replicate the same in the production or actual operations environment. Communication is one of the most important skills that any trainer can possess. Trainers have a responsibility to ensure that the learning process is qualitative. If you can’t communicate effectively with your trainees, then you won’t be able to achieve the best results for them. Good communication skills are essential when training adults. Bay Hewitt can provide helpful information on how to communicate most effectively with participants, helping trainers with developing training messages, providing facilitation tips, and offering ways to improve presentation skills for the best training outcome possible.
Evaluate
So what is the ROI on training? Did your investment and effort pay off? Many training programs go on and on and the entire company has no visibility on the actual effect and impact it had on the organization. Did the Supervisory Skills Training that your supervisors and team leaders attend pay off? Was the Conflict Management Program that different departments head went to effective? More often than not, money goes down the drain because organizations and trainers don't know how to account for the Return of Investment (ROI) and Return of Effort (ROE). Bay Hewitt can help your trainers look for the value of learning and development so your entire team can appreciate it.
So that's CADDIE! How many trainers are actually well-versed on the entire cycle? Not many. And don't be the last company to invest in your training department. Send them today to Bay Hewitt's full suite of train-the-trainer programs and training seminars for trainers so you have a strong learning department that can help you achieve your business objectives.