The Benefits of Training Others at the Office

One of the best, tried-and-true ways to excel at what you do is explain it to someone else. Oftentimes, we go through our jobs — which can include detailed systems and processes — without realizing what we are actually doing. If you are years or decades deep into your career, much of your expertise may be “all in your head” — and you may not even realize there’s a better way to do something, opening up the opportunity to excel more and even advance higher up the ladder.

(Photo Credit: Yutaka Fujiki/Flickr)

If this sounds like where you’re at in your career, you may want to consider training others. There are a multitude of benefits of training others at the office, whether it’s because you want to demonstrate leadership or because you’re passing on the torch.

You’ll Learn to Do Your Job Better

“Teaching others what you know is a wonderful opportunity to share knowledge and boost your career,” writes Joan Lloyd at The Orlando Business Journal. “In addition, you never learn something better than when you have to teach it to others.”

Training others may seem straightforward, as you’re just teaching others the skills and expertise you’ve amassed over the years, but as Lloyd explains, if you really want to both convey knowledge and solidify your own skills, you need to know how to teach what you already know. For example, instead of using the “Firehouse method” and spraying all your information at the trainee at once, Lloyd suggests that you “ask yourself, ‘What specific action do I want the learner to be able to take when the training is finished?'”

If you’re ready to start training others, you may want to consider attending training seminars or ask your boss for coaching. Since the kind of coaching and training you’ll need will vary from industry, a quick Google search will help you find the conferences, seminars, or even online courses that can help you prepare yourself to start training others in your office. 

You’ll Get to Add Leadership Experience to Your Resume

Training others can be a great item to add to your resume and help propel your way through your career. Of course, training someone for the sake of adding it to your resume isn’t the same as training someone in order to get results. 

“There’s a big difference between having a training session so that you can say you had it; and having a training session that effectively changes behavior,” writes Jamillah Warner at Small Business Trends. “In other words, it doesn’t matter what you tell the team if the message doesn’t stick.”

To help your trainees to remember what you teach them, make sure you:

• Say it
• Display it
• Demonstrate it
• Have your trainees put their hands on it
• Teach it again

While this may sound like a lot, it may help offload work from your desk to theirs and help you manage a more efficient team that accomplishes more projects — milestones that are also worth noting on your resume and LinkedIn profile. 

You Might Get Promoted Faster

Mashable also describes the benefits of training others. As Tim Cannon writes, it can help you develop and refine your skills, become a better communicator, and even get promoted faster as training demonstrates your commitment and value to the company. You might even earn more: an Executive Assistant starts out making an average salary of $41,000, but later in their career earns an average of $54,372 — demonstrating that no matter where you are in the office, showing tenacity and leadership, especially through showing others the ropes, can only benefit you. 

Tell Us What You Think

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