Training and Development

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[Speaker 3]

Hello. Good afternoon, ma'am.

[Speaker 1]

Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am.

Can you hear me? Okay. Yes, tell me.

[Speaker 2]

Okay. So, yeah. So, first, Daksh will ask you some questions.

Then I will proceed.

[Speaker 1]

Sure. Go ahead.

[Speaker 3]

Should I start?

[Speaker 2]

Yes.

[Speaker 3]

Okay. His screen is a bit stuck.

[Speaker 1]

Okay. So, it's a delayed response you're getting?

[Speaker 3]

Yes, ma'am. Your video is not working properly.

[Speaker 1]

Okay, what I'll do is I'll switch off the video so that the audio is quite clear.

[Speaker 2]
We'll switch it on while taking the photo.

[Speaker 3]

Okay.

[Speaker 1]

Okay, tell me. I think this should put the network at ease. Tell me.

[Speaker 3]

Yes, ma'am. So, our first question is what kind of training do you give and to whom?

[Speaker 1]

I basically am an expert in the soft skills training. Now, soft skills is a very vast umbrella and it
includes the behavioral aspects of people working in different workplaces. Now, this can be
corporates, this can be educational institutes, and this can be industry.

So, my expertise lies in, as of now, I have trained students, the graduates, and executives,
middle managers who are in the industry. So, this is my expertise. The audience is, as I said, the
graduates, school students, and executives.

[Speaker 3]

Okay, ma'am. So, our second question is, before you start a training session, how do you
identify what skills or knowledge gaps the participants are missing? And what methods do you
use, such as surveys, interviews, observation, to assess and understand their training needs?

[Speaker 1]

Okay, this has many layers to it. The training need analysis has many layers to it. I'll go one by
one, the way I function.

The first thing is, whoever is appointing me for the training, I would talk to them regarding the
audience. Now, say, for example, if it's an educational institute, I would like to know their
requirements since they're students. What are they trying to do?

In educational institutes, mostly it is making them job ready and working on the behavioral
aspects and grooming them for appearance, behavior, and communication. So, this is one
thing. So, this background information, mostly I get when it comes to educational institutes.

Apart from this, when I talk to the student in the first session, I would spend some 20 minutes
to understand what is their level of the subject. I would ask questions, have an interaction, do
some discussion so that I understand where is their level of understanding or the depth of the
subject that they have. And then I would proceed and build up on the required topics.
So, this is first, the educational institute. Second, when it comes to industry, they're very specific
in topics. When it comes to the industry, they would tell me either it's a team building or they
want specifically on time management or they want specifically on leadership.

They're very specific about the topic. So, in that case, the topic is very clear. Only thing is I need
to talk to the person concerned, mostly the HR or the training manager, that what are they
looking for.

After the completion of this training, what are their objectives? What is it that they want to
achieve that their employees should learn? So, with this conversation, I get an idea what are
their outcomes.

Based on that outcome, I would design a protocol or the session guidelines. Again, when we
talk to the audience, I would tell them, say for example, the HR or the training manager, they
have given me a topic that this is a two-hour session. We want to talk about stress management
to the employees and these are middle managers.

So, when the session begins, I would try to talk to them. What is their understanding of stress?
How do they define it?

What are the measures they think they would be requiring? Once I gauge this, based on this
information, I build up the session and take it to the desired outcome. There are other methods
as well.

There are surveys. There are specific questionnaires, which I have not used as of now, which
has not been required by me.

[Speaker 3]

Then third question is, in your experience, working with fresh graduates or early professionals,
what are the most common training needs you observe?

[Speaker 1]

Most common training needs when I'm working with the fresh graduates and early
professionals is their communication skills when it comes to speaking and writing. Because
most of the times I have observed that their technical backgrounds, their subject knowledge is
very sound. But what they face is the gap where they need to express, communicate their ideas
and share their knowledge and expertise.

Either to their seniors or to the team. So, this is the first gap. Second gap is in the writing.

Because of today, the writing skills are very weak. Maybe the educational system, I'm not going
to the roots of it. But what I see is a big gap when it comes to writing.

A simple paragraph, a simple email, a simple message which is to be conveyed to the team or
to the manager or to the senior. It requires a lot of professional words and sentences, which I
feel it is lacking. And the third is the confidence and the body language part.

They know a lot. They are expert in their subjects. But since when it comes to the presentation
of their knowledge, the sharing of their knowledge, being in the team and presenting their
expertise, there's a lack of confidence.

And the body language shows it all. So, the command on the body language and how it can be
used to enhance their careers and have a growth in their professional life is something which is
a challenge, which I see all around. That is the three major concerns which comes at the top of
my mind.

[Speaker 3]

Okay, ma'am. So, fourth question is sometimes…

[Speaker 1]

If I may add to that the previous question, there's another thing. When we do the interview
skills, what I've understood is that most of the graduates and the fresh employees, they don't
know their own strengths. Because when they are learning, nobody tells them that this is your
strength and how would you find it.

They know their subject. They know their marks. But what is their strength?

Nobody tells them how to find your strength, whether you are a natural leader, whether you
are a natural manager, whether you are very good in team, whether you have excellent
analytical skills, whether you are good in conflict management. Everybody has one or two
inherent skills which are their strengths. But nobody teaches them how to find it out.

And when they lack this, it becomes very difficult to face the interviews and even ask for a
promotion once they start that job. So, this is another thing I see which is a gap. When it comes
to the fresh employees, you know, new executives or freshly graduate students.

[Speaker 2]

One thing, ma'am. Like you said, surveys and all, you don't do it now. You clearly told us about
the interview.

But do you have samples of survey questions that you have prepared before?

[Speaker 1]

I have not used a survey. I have not used a survey. But this is the method I know my fellow
trainers used in industry.

And as a part of training need analysis, this is one of the methods. Personally, I've never used a
survey.

[Speaker 2]

Any idea what kind of questions they ask to identify skill and knowledge gap?

[Speaker 1]

Yes. Yes. See, the survey basically depends upon what is the outcome.

It is always related to the outcome that you wish to bring. Because every training needs to fulfill
a need. Why are you spending two hours with the employees?

What is the outcome? What is the change that you're looking for? Now, say, for example, as I
said, the example earlier, stress management.

Now, if you're conducting a training on stress management, naturally, the outcome that you're
looking for is the employees should be more aware, more prepared and have a better
understanding of what is stress and how are they managing. So, in this case, the survey would
involve questions like what is their understanding of stress or multiple choice questions where
they are asked to choose a situation which gives them stress. So, in this case, we would analyze
based on their experience questions which would give out their experience.

How do they categorize a particular situation as stress challenge or a normal routine? So, these
are the changes. Second part can be the behavioral aspect of it or assessing their emotional
quotient that what do they do?

What would be the best response if you come across a particular situation? How would you deal
with it? How would you deal with it when you are in a team?

How would you cope up if it is coming from a senior or a junior? So, these kind of questions can
be single line or can have multiple choice answers where the assessor gets an idea that what is
the mindset of the audience who's coming for the session of stress management. Similarly goes
for any other topic.

The whole questionnaire is designed to bring about the specific outcome. If it is time
management, the questions will revolve around that. What is time management understanding
and the emotional question?

If it is team building, similarly, they would have a few questions on the topic itself and few
questions on the emotional quotient. So, this is a combination which goes.

[Speaker 3]

So, our fourth question is sometimes there are issues like lack of confidence or attitude issues
which are personal. So, how do you identify which issues can be solved by training and which
required other interventions like mentoring or counseling?

[Speaker 1]

The confidence issues, once confidence is one subject, you would not directly start in the first
15 minutes or the first hour or first session. You have to build up the understanding of this
topic in a session which is a part of another topic. Why I tell this is because, say for example, if
I'm telling let's talk about confidence.

Now, this is a very direct, very blunt question and probably a very boring question. Nobody
would like to answer. Like, how do you answer?

What is confidence? So, in that case, say for example, confidence is an issue. We would go
through different kind of activities, maybe in a team, maybe in groups.

And while debriefing of those activities, you would talk about the level of confidence. You can
show, you would talk about the level of involvement and thereby you assess the confidence
level of every participant involved. Coming to the second part of your question, Daksh, how do
you know that it needs mentoring or it needs counseling?

That is the second stage. Most of the times when the debriefing of the activities happen and
then you address the topic and you have a discussion, 90% of the times you feel a change in the
body language, change in the perception, change in the language they use. When the
interaction is happening, thereby you understand that the point has been brought across.

But if this has been discussed and any person or more than one person, they are not coming
out of their shell or not showing any involvement or improvement to a bit With respect to
working together as a team in the session, then you see that this goes beyond the group
audience. This might need a personal one-to-one session, a mentoring, a counseling.
Otherwise, when you talk about confidence level in a group activity, you can assess shyness is
one thing.

People may be shy, people may take time to open up, but that does not mean they are not
confident. They just need to get accustomed to the environment and the group. So, if you have
an activity, if you have an interaction, they are accustomed.

You would see shy people also contributing, talking, interacting, having question answers. So,
that time you know that this is not something which is requiring mentoring. But sometimes
there are audience, there are people who are very quiet.

No matter what you ask, no matter what you say, they get defensive as well. If you are having
an interaction, then you know that it goes beyond the training. It requires one-to-one mentor
or counseling session.

[Speaker 2]
Ma'am, one doubt. But the things which you feel before the training, like someone's attitude,
anger issues, lack of fun. Why do you need to conduct those activities to find out if the
training…

I mean, first you are giving a little bit of training by conducting activities. Then you come at that
stage where you decide whether you want to train them or not. So, why that much?

Why can't you decide beforehand that all these issues are personal issues. We can't do anything
about it. If someone gets angry, that is their personal issue.

If someone has an attitude problem, that is their personal issue. You give training for different
things, right? Like communications, all these things.

So, in the beginning itself, we know that we can give training to this thing, but not to that thing.
It needs mentoring. Then why we need to conduct particular…

[Speaker 1]

Yes. Hello?

[Speaker 2]

In that…

[Speaker 1]

Why we need to… It happens.

[Speaker 2]

Yes. Yes, I said it.

[Speaker 1]

In this case, what happens is, as you are telling, right? You are very correct in saying that why
do we need all that if you know beforehand. But when you do training, so anger issues, attitude
issues, when they are there, most of the time they are due to their beliefs and biases.

So, when you talk about soft skills, it is not a black and white thing. Soft skill is not right and
wrong, black and white. It cannot be this way, plus or minus.

When you are talking about soft skills, now say, for example, if I want to talk about confidence,
if I want to talk about biases, if I want to talk about beliefs, maybe I would have an activity
which is related to a team and a conflict management topic. In that, when the discussion and
debriefing happens, the people with an attitude, with an anger management issue, they would
have a specific behavior. At that time, you address those things because soft skill is always the
behavioral aspect of a person.
It is not something as a subject that you teach. It is not a technical thing. It's not a hard skill.

It is about the emotions, the behavior, the thought process, the belief system of people. So,
that is why when you talk about soft skills, you cannot address one single topic singularly like
you can talk about thermodynamics or like you can talk about photosynthesis. It's not like that.

It is a behavioral aspect. We take as trainers that people would come with their biases. They
would come with their attitudes.

They would come with their issues. Our job is to put across a point to make them understand
that the biases can be hindering their progress. That every person is coming with their own set
of preconceived notions, preconceived beliefs, and preconceived biases.

Once they understand it, they can navigate. Once you understand, okay, this is my limitation or
this is happening, you can see it in yourself plus it gives you an insight to see it in other people.
Now, say for example, I have a bias about something.

Now, say for example, I am going to a workplace where I am very biased about my notion that
maybe certain kind of people do not have intelligence. Maybe certain kind of people who are
coming from a certain community or certain area or certain schools or certain educational
background, they do not have that kind of intelligence which is required. Now, this is my bias.

So, I cannot address as a trainer this bias in somebody. What I need to address is that these
kind of biases stop you to see people as people. Ultimately, the goal of soft skills training is to
see people with their own abilities, to see people with their own talents without any biases,
preconceived notions, or belief systems, without the judgments.

That is whole point of having a soft skills training. So, you have to weave these kind of
experiences in the training. It has to be through activities, through talks, through quizzes,
through discussions.

During the discussions, you prompt certain questions and help the participant understand and
to perceive a different set of beliefs and opinions. It's all about opening your perception to the
new dimensions. Have I answered your question Anshu?

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, are you clear? One more question regarding this. What you meant to say is that you know
that soft skills depend on your personal behavior as well.

So, once you just try to make them feel that you have to change this in order to learn any soft
skill. But if they understand, then you give them further training. But if they don't understand,
then you guys suggest them to take mentoring and all.

Is it like that?
[Speaker 1]

To an extent, correct. Now, I'll give you an example. When I talk to the educational institute or
people who are very early in their career, when I talk to them, what I find is they feel everybody
else is very good in what they do except themselves.

This is something they have a very core belief inside them no matter what they project outside.
The first thing they need to understand is there's no replica. You have to understand that if you
are having a set of qualities, you need to that set of qualities.

Nobody else has it. And once you own up to that, it gives you that kind of confidence that okay,
this is me and I can learn forward and grow. Most of the time, I feel that there is no innate
sense of pride.

Yes, either it would be arrogance that I can do everything. I know this. Or there's an innate
sense of everybody else is better.

To understand this, the simple example which I give them is ask them, do you see your clone?
Do you see your clone? Have you seen anybody like you?

Is the cloning happening? And they say no. And they have to realize that you are only one piece
on this earth.

That is your power. This is so basic that I have to talk to them when I speak to them. Now, this
works on so many levels.

Once you understand this, this works on their ability to perform. This works on their perception.
This works on their confidence.

This works on their learning abilities. This works on their performance is workplace and in
team. One single thing realizing that there is no one like you and you have made unique and
you have your own set of qualities and that's good enough to start with.

This is one thing. There are so many inhibitions which are shedded.

[Speaker 2]

Next question.

[Speaker 3]

So next question is how do you design training objectives once you identify and understand the
needs of the participants? So here training objective means deciding and stating what
participants are going to learn or achieve through this training.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. There are different levels when you're talking about outcomes. So when you're talking to
the authority, maybe the training manager or the HR who hires the trainer for delivering a
session, you have to understand what is the outcome they're requiring.

Now, I tell this because most of the time, sometimes they say, okay, ma'am, just introduction.
Because this is something new. We would like our team say, for example, emotional
intelligence.

So we would like our team to know what is emotional intelligence and how it works. Sometimes
they would come and say, ma'am, they know the basic introduction of emotional intelligence.
We would like to dig it deeper, take it to the levels and take it to the point where they can have
an understanding and demonstrate and use it in real life situations.

So that is second level, a depth. Third is sometimes the industry or the people who are hiring
would say that we would like to not only give the in-depth understanding of emotional
intelligence, but we would like to have a two months, three months program where they are
monitored by various activities. And they show different kind of behaviors where it says that
they have understood what is emotional intelligence.

So it all depends to what level they are talking about. Sometimes it's only level one and two.
They need an understanding or sometimes an in-depth related to the uses they are going to
have.

So it all depends on the person who's hiring the trainer. Because say, for example, if I talk about
stress management, I can cover the training in one hour and it can take four hours of
workshop. It all depends how much depth do you want to take and understanding do you want
to achieve in your participants, in your employees or in the students or audience that you have.

[Speaker 3]

Okay, so next question is, as you give training to job professionals also, do you see competency
mapping in your programs?

[Speaker 1]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Competency mapping, there are on two levels. Sometimes the
hirer or the person who is hiring the industry would see the competency in terms of their
technical skills.

Now, say, for example, in engineering field, the technical skills are of prime importance. If I'm
talking about mechanical or civil engineering or chemical engineering, the technical skills are of
prime importance. So in that case, competency would be required whether they know the
subject or not.

Then comes the soft skills that are they able to communicate? Are they able to work in a team?
Can they write a decent email?

But in these cases, the prime is their hard skills. So in that case, the competency metrics is
based on their experience, what they can deliver and their subject knowledge. But sometimes
in an industry where the work is project based, you're not working on the industry shop floor.

You're working in an office, you're working with the teams who are middle management or
working with the teams who are with the senior management where most of the administrative
work is involved. Most, say, for example, in HR. Now, in that case, they need to know the
competency when it comes to people.

Handling them, talking to them, understanding the behaviors, understanding their patterns,
knowing their, the words they use, how they communicate. In that case, the soft skill part is the
highlight and the competency metrics is how well a person can behave and communicate. Then
comes the second part, that is their hard skills.

So it depends from industry to industry. What are you looking for? A mechanical engineer
might need to have a competency higher in his or her skills of mechanical engineering.

Then comes the soft skills. But the HR manager needs a very high competency when it comes to
soft skills. Dealing with people rather than the data and clauses and understanding of all the HR
formalities.

[Speaker 2]

How it helps in planning and customizing training for them?

[Speaker 1]

How it helps in planning and customizing the training for whom?

[Speaker 2]

For example, you have job professionals who are already doing jobs and all. So, they need to
enhance their skills. For a particular job role, they are performing.

So, once you find what skills are required in their job role, then you check whether those skills
are present in that particular person or not. Then you tell them whether they should focus on
that particular skill or not. So, how does this help you in planning and customizing training as a
trainer?

Because it becomes easy for you. You get to know that this person had to enhance his or her
skills. He or she needed these skills in his or her job.

He or she had only these skills in his or her job. So, it helps you in planning.

[Speaker 1]
So, it helps you in planning. My only concern is that they should be able to communicate,
maybe write a decent email and maybe able to talk to the seniors and work in a team. Team is
my prime concern.

Now, say for example, that same person after five years goes to a position to a manager and
that person has a team of five people and becomes a project manager. Now, in that case, my
whole focus would be not the hard skills. I would really like them to have leadership skills, the
emotional intelligence and how to manage time.

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