Top 7 Training Administrator & Scheduler Pet Peeves
Training administrators and schedulers fulfill some of the most mission-critical back-office training activities within the training function, but often don’t receive much credit for keeping all these training activities on time and on budget. Here are the top seven training administrator pet peeves and what can be done to make life easier!
1. Since when do I have 5 different bosses?
Meet Angela. She’s your friendly, hard-working, reliable corporate training administrator. Now that she has settled down at her desk this Monday morning, she opens her email to find the floodgates have opened. There are 40 new messages each requesting different classroom training sessions from sales, HR, and technical teams. When demands are handed down and email requests are forwarded to a training administrator, it can feel like having 5 different bosses asking you to forecast all their training needs.
Tip: Create priority labels or categories for important emails and label them as they come in. This will help you prioritize requests from top priority to low priority.
2. Finding the important information shouldn’t be a scavenger hunt.
For a training administrator, training logistics starts with knowing the when, where, and what of a training program. It requires quick and easy access to the most vital information. Digging through disparate email chains, compliance regulation documents, and other disorganized information slows down Angela’s to-do list!
Tip: Create a training request template to send to your stakeholders that focuses on the key questions: the “who, what, when, and where” of the training program. When it’s time to send you a request, they’ll just fill in a few simple questions.
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3. Would you like to save your changes before closing this document?
During a busy day, training administrators are hard at work resolving complex scheduling conflicts and planning sessions. Angela might move the sales training to a different date on the calendar right before leaving for lunch – but forget to save those changes. That means when another training administrator checks the schedule a few hours later and continues adjusting sessions, they aren’t working with the latest version. When there isn’t an easy way to share or update administrative documents, organization is difficult and work takes more time.
Tip: Establish ground rules for before, during, and after the planning process with your fellow training administrators. Update relevant team members about any changes or updates.
4. Can I put you on hold for just a moment?
When it’s crunch time and Angela is coordinating logistics for classroom training by booking facilities or making transportation arrangements for instructors, the last thing she wants to hear from a potential training venue is “May I put you on hold for a few moments?” There are often scheduling deadlines to meet and people to send agendas to, and dealing with unresponsive vendors can get under your skin.
Tip: Review your list of vendors with your team and keep tabs on those that provide good services or products, and those that don’t. It’s crucial to get feedback about your vendors to make sure you’re working with the best people possible.
5. Help! I need another desk/chair/computer in one of my classrooms!
Receiving a panicked phone call about a malfunctioning projector is one of many fires training administrators extinguish. No matter how thoroughly planned a session is, there’s always a possibility for something to go wrong. When something is left off the to-do lists, it becomes a problem.
Tip: Consolidate to-do lists for consistency and share them with the entire training management team. Prepare lists of standard tasks that need to get done regardless of the type of training so you know the essentials are dealt with.
6. Human versus machine, or training administrator versus spreadsheets
Part of Angela’s job is to generate reports and track data such as attendance sheets, schedules, and budgets. She’s great at multitasking, and keeping her records pristine, but manually inserting numbers into massive Excel sheets takes time. It’s easy to forget that someone who is organized and efficient is still not a robot at the end of the day. Humans can’t compute or filter large numbers as well as technology can, and training administrators aren’t machines.
Tip: Look at past reports and note the data that is consistently used or required. Then create a list of “information usually needed for reports” and get in the habit of tracking those numbers ahead of time so you’re better prepared.
7. When you need a translator for training administration
When companies adopt global training programs, it should not require training administrators to learn one or two – or ten – new languages. Multiple countries mean multiple currencies and government regulations. While it’s great for companies to expand into a global space, it also complicates training delivery needs. It means training administrators have to learn new vocabulary when planning and scheduling sessions or integrate different exchange rates when tracking budgets. Because regulations and certifications are different from country to country, miscalculations of budgets or oversight of important policies could alter training sessions.
Tip: Do some research of your own to understand government regulations and requirements as early as possible to set yourself up for success. You might even suggest investing in a system that automates currency conversions.
Tell Us What Frustrates You
In a dream world, any administrative issue could be solved with a flick of a magical training administration wand. While technology hasn’t quite caught up to such magic, there are innovative tools such as training management systems that can make ILT operational processes more efficient. A system that can automate tasks, assist in planning, and track costs is a great place to start. Training Orchestra is a leader in Course Management System and provides an integrated full web solution dedicated to the entire training ecosystem: Training Departments, Corporate Universities, Extended Enterprises and Training Companies.
