The corporate sector is an integral part of the modern world. To survive and subsequently have a flourishing career, it has become vital for every corporate employee to undergo professional training to polish their existing skills and develop new ones. With this in mind, corporates are now focusing on conducting training sessions for their workforce. Progressive organisations know that training their employees on a regular basis is the only way to stay ahead of the competition. This, in turn, has opened career opportunities for corporate trainers, especially women.
Women make very good trainers; they have the knack of connecting with the participants, understanding their problems and providing them with a beneficial solution to their problems. In the corporate world, trainers deal with mature adult audiences who come with their own experiences and perceptions. Trainers build strong relationships with their participants to get the message across. This is not to say that male corporate trainers fail to do so; women simply are more adept at forging a connection with others.
It is important for trainers to possess a natural ease in dealing with people, be able to present themselves with confidence, spontaneity to respond to difficult situations with ease, enthusiasm and a passion for the subject matter. The best trainers are also the ones who are charming, as charm can be very useful to bond with the audience in a training session and leave a lasting impact.
Workplace bias
No matter how much corporates try to ignore it or brush it away, there is an evident bias against women in the corporate world. It is a fact that women do not always have it as easy as men at the workplace. It is a phenomenon across the world, where women have to struggle more and work much harder than men. A career in training then comes as a lucrative option to women when it comes to maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Looking at the flexibility it offers, many women find it a more comfortable career path.
In my experience so far, I have usually seen corporate training as a job that people come to after they have worked for a while and gained considerable experience on a subject, or after a sabbatical. There are very few young people who want to be trainers right at the beginning of their career. With diverse opportunities, flexible timings, and freelance options, many women use this as a platform to re-launch their careers. Over the years, the corporate training world has seen a number of women making a mark in the training arena.
Career options
The career options that are available in training such as content development, training, e-learning, and the like allow women to take it up as full-time or as a freelancing profession. This also provides them with the flexibility to devote enough time for work at home as well.
Most women in the corporate training world have mastered certain skills in their professional experience from various sectors. This helps them when they are teaching. Women also have a flair for coaching and mentoring. It is no wonder then that they are progressing as trainers. A man may sometimes come across as aggressive vis-à-vis a woman who has the ability to convey a message in the right way.
To survive in today’s corporate world, instincts alone are not enough. A professional working woman is bound to face challenges in today’s male-dominated workspace. Such challenges affect their confidence and ability to sustain their ambition over the course of their careers and it doesn’t help that workplace practices are still ingrained with gender bias and stereotypes. However, this scenario seems to be changing, as today’s corporate training world is seeing more and more women trainers. Looking at such trends, one can assertively saythat in the future, women trainers will certainly metamorphose into effective leaders.