A corporate trainer’s function is normally to make a company or corporation more profitable and successful through improving communications among employees and with management. He may also be hired to educate the personnel on using new software or hardware purchased by the company to enhance operations or to introduce a brand new list of policies and procedures. A corporate trainer may work as an independent contractor or for a company that offers a multitude of training services. The trainer may also work for small-to-medium-sized companies that may be profit or non-profit firms.
If the trainer’s job is focused on the betterment of communications, he normally meets with the owner or general manager of a company to assess the problem areas. The most common areas of concern frequently include lack of motivation in the workplace, inadequate leadership, inconsistent management styles and poor written and oral communication practices. Problems in one, several or all of these areas can have significant negative effects on a company’s profits and productivity.
To remedy these problems, a corporate trainer usually implements several plans to appeal to the greatest number of employees. Popular corporate training techniques include role playing, mind-over-matter exercises such as hot coal walking and trust building games such as falling backward into a person’s arms without hesitation. Parlor-type games that challenge people to gain knowledge of each other through word and picture association are also favored by many corporate trainers.
Training employees in utilizing new hardware or software or implementing new policies and procedures is usually a less complex corporate trainer job. If he is hired for this job, he typically studies the equipment, applications or policies on his own and then shares his knowledge with the employees. This instruction may be given to groups of employees or, if the company is relatively small, one-on-one teaching may be appropriate.
Success in this role normally requires the corporate trainer to have the generally unique ability to gain trust and respect in a short period of time from a highly diverse mix of personalities. Some training can result in animosity among personnel—a virtual stranger who is not part of daily operations offering advice on how to interact in a more congenial and productive manner is sometimes met with resentment and resistance.
The educational requirements to be a corporate trainer vary greatly depending on what specialty he offers to clients. If a trainer specializes in improving employee communications, a bachelor’s degree in human resources or psychology is preferred. For other specialties such as computer operations or business administration, related coursework, degrees, or experience is desirable.