• A comprehensive guide covering the entire training process--a wealth of tools, techniques, and models in an all-in-one guide to training
• Written for beginning trainers and the hundreds of thousands of "accidental trainers" in the workplace--employees who are asked to take on some training duties as part of their jobs
• The author has taught train-the-trainer programs for more than two decades

Organizations today are required to train employees, clients or customers more quickly and more frequently than ever before. And often these training duties fall to "accidental trainers"--employees with little or no training knowledge. The Professional Trainer is designed to help anyone with any level of training responsibility. Experienced trainer Robert Vaughn has written a step-by-step guide which provides both the conceptual background for understanding the training process and a host of hands-on tools and exercises.

He begins with some big-picture issues, such as how training is different than teaching and the ways in which adults learn differently than children. Next, he covers the extremely important first step: identifying and clarifying the training needs of the employees and the organization. Once you know what people need to learn, the book takes you through the steps of planning and designing the training, determining how to measure training success, choosing the best training approach, selecting media and facilities to support it, actually delivering the training, and finding out whether or not it worked.

Throughout, Vaughn provides such practical aids as a list of ways to help make the learning experience more attractive and effective for adults; a nine-step method for figuring out what skills and knowledge need to be included in a training program; checklists to help make decisions about technology-based training; a guide for developing an on-the-job training lesson plan; a step-by-step training program assessment process; and many, many more. The Professional Trainer can serve as a complete overview of the training process for the novice, and, with its many practical tools, as an excellent troubleshooting reference for experienced trainers facing specific professional challenges.