How do you establish rapport, trust, and feedback with the learners and the stakeholders?

As a technical trainer, I build rapport by introducing myself, sharing my credentials, and expressing my passion for the subject. I tailor my content to learners' needs and use engaging activities to create a positive atmosphere. Trust is cultivated by demonstrating competence and reliability. I maintain eye contact, use an engaging voice, and actively listen to my learners. I share personal stories and show genuine emotion. I encourage participation, provide self-assessment tools, and seek feedback from learners and stakeholders. In essence, establishing rapport, trust, and feedback is about creating an engaging, supportive learning environment and showing genuine interest in my learners' aspirations and challenges.

Dans mon travail de formateur, je re?ois souvent des personnes qui souhaitent monter en compétence technique sur un logiciel qu'elles n'ont pas réussie à maitriser lors de leurs études à l'université. Elles ont souvent gardé un traumatisme des cours sur ce logiciel. Au départ, elles estiment qu'elles n'arriveront jamais à le maitriser. Une des compétence clés d'un formateur est d'être capable de rassurer les apprenant,de leur redonner confiance en eux et de désamorcer ce traumatisme en les prenant par la main et en valorisant le moindre de leurs acquis. Il est également important de le proposer des outils d'autoévaluation afin qu'ils prennent la mesure de leur progrès. Et d'évaluer une production dont ils peuvent être fier à la fin.

To establish rapport, trust, and feedback with learners and stakeholders, I actively listen to their needs and concerns, ensuring that their voices are heard and valued. I foster open communication by creating a supportive environment where feedback is encouraged and acted upon promptly. By consistently delivering on promises and demonstrating commitment to their success, I build long-lasting, trust-based relationships.

Eye contact, an engaging voice and a listening ear - the human touch - are crucial in building rapport. When delivering prerecorded training via a Learning Management System, voice can become even more important to gain learners trust and attention, and help them feel communicated with - and part of the learning process.

When I first started as a young trainer I always felt I had to “be overly professional and not show emotion”. As I grew in life and my journey I realized that was the wrong approach. While it worked, my audiences are highly engaged today BECAUSE I show emotion; specifically my passion for the subject. Your audience can tell when you’re phoning it in. They can also feel the passion and energy when you are truly engaged. Don’t hold back, your goal isn’t just transferring information to the audience but to help them connect with it and make it relevant.

Knowing your content, inside and out, can go a long way in building trust. If you're using a PowerPoint or Slides, they are NOT a teleprompter! Also, please be honest when you don't know something but have a plan to capture the question and follow through on finding out and reporting back.

Be well prepared, but if you don't know something, or can't answer a question, admit it. Make a note and ensure you get back to the learner or stakeholder. Your "invisible reputation" is formed in this way - it will travel ahead of (and behind) you - helping or hindering depending on your thoroughness and integrity.

Your audience allows a certain amount of “trust” due to the fact you are leading them through the journey. But that can quickly evaporate by your actions and words. Use the trust to also bring your audience forward and build them up. Let me clarify; ask engaging questions and direct them at the audience, expecting feedback. Show them that you are interested in their feedback and use it to elevate the experience. Now, you have created a bond between yourself and an audience member. Other audience members now feel a deeper connection to you because you “come to their level.” I have rarely encountered “the know it all” when using this technique, primarily because that audience member is recognized and validated.

A trainer’s job is one of the toughest, you are imparting knowledge to your learners which will be further leveraged in their career or education. It is essential to be well prepared for your lessons with demos, verifying if anything has changed in content before, if you don’t have an immediate answer to a learner’s question you should be honest to say so. Be as communicative as possible in terms of learning agenda, gives them clarity. Give them time between lessons for breaks and quick fun activity. This really helps in building a trust and assurance with learners. They will highly respect your efforts and honesty.

Building trust in technical training hinges on showing expertise while being transparent and approachable. Clear, accurate content establishes credibility. Admitting to any limitations and maintaining consistency bolsters trust. Being supportive and resourceful, respecting confidentiality, and treating everyone equally further strengthen this trust, making the learning process collaborative and effective.

Be encouraging, honest, professional and insightful. Keep the feedback relevant to the learner's role and the real-world challenges they face - both within themselves, if appropriate, and within their role.

Not all courses allow for in depth feedback, but it is a very crucial part of the learning process. This is usually where I analyze the learner’s comprehension of the material. Recognizing the strengths and weaknesses with regular checkpoints can make the difference between a learner who just shows up and one that actively engages.

Listen to the business, or organisational, needs of stakeholders. Try to get to know the Stakeholders in advance, if possible. Look at the Learning goals and outcomes from their point of view, as well as the learners, and your own.

"Trust is built with consistency," said Lincoln Chafee. By maintaining transparency, being consistent, and actively seeking input, you can build strong relationships with both learners and stakeholders, fostering a collaborative and trusting environment. In my experience, consistency and open communication are key. For example, regularly update stakeholders on progress and invite their input on training materials and methods. One effective practice is to create feedback loops through surveys and meetings, ensuring all voices are heard. With learners, build rapport by being approachable and responsive to their needs. A common mistake is neglecting follow-up on feedback.

Listen, and communicate clearly. Be both pragmatic and insightful. Acknowledge the broader challenges faced by Stakeholders, and also be prepared to present your perspective, and that of the learners, whom you should try to get to know beforehand.

I created a training program for new customers learning a complex product. My goal was loosely defined as “help the customer use our product”. I looked at who could be impacted and asked for feedback: support (to reduce the number of tickets), professional services (for faster implementation), and customer success (for ongoing maintenance and onboarding new use cases). Focusing on these primary areas elevated the learning experience by focusing on the struggles and developing a course to overcome them. It was so successful that we were able to turn it into a certification, which only made it more popular and appealing. Checking in with the teams regularly allowed us to keep the course relevant to the current hurdles and reduce overhead.

Report back honestly, accurately and with a broader vision of what the learning is trying to acheive. Do not be afraid to challenge accepted wisdom by presenting both a constructive and realistic picture of the project, it's progress, challenges and successes. Again, integrity is key.

You can learn something from everyone you meet. What did you take away from meeting person X or Y? Now, let’s flip that. A person learns something from you when they meet you. Did you leave an impact? Was it a good one? How can you make that experience more memorable and meaningful for them? I tend to remember things more clearly when the author/speaker/person has made an impact. Adding that into your educational journey improves the learning experience and their retention of that information.

Learners and Stakeholders are human beings looking to acheive business - and personal - goals, aims and aspirations. Sensitivity to these, and your own, is crucial in building rapport and trust. Clear goals and objectives, good preparatory work, relationship-building, honesty, clear communication, regular project updates, simplicity and clarity are also crucial.

I think as a trainer it is extremely important that not only we deliver a content effectively but also create lasting memory for our learners with our story telling, facts, demo and eye contact. I also feel whiteboard creates a huge impact when explaining concepts and implementation. Sometimes going an extra mile can change someone’s life and that’s the best feeling in the world, trust me. ??