Honest feedback

[1400spincycle]

Name changed as I’ve been posting rather too much recently...

I am worrying that I have been unreasonable about some feedback I left for a course I went on last week.

I was sent to another branch of my work for some training. Very dull, mandatory sort of thing - think health and safety. I was the only person there from my work and all the others were from the branch that was holding the course. The session was not great. Several hours of the trainer reading out a powerpoint. This is always tedious but there is a lot of content to cover. Trouble was the trainer had great difficulty reading most of the slides. We could all read it for ourselves and then had to sit and wait for her to catch us up. I think she may have been ahaving trouble with her glasses but I wish she had asked us all to take turns reading or something.

At the end of the session we were given a feedback form. I felt very put on the spot and I gave 6/10 for presentation. Then I discovered that all her colleagues had given 10/10. She seemed quite upset and someone mentioned that it had been her first session. Now I am worried I have caused a problem when all I meant was that it wasn’t great? WIBU?

[GoofyIsACow]

You gave honest feedback (i was once politely asked to mutually move on from a very large french skincare house for doing the same!) don’t feel bad!

[Sparklesocks]

Not at all - feedback is a huge part of training and she needs to take constructive criticism.

I’ve been trained on training session delivery (!) and lead a few sessions myself, and one of the first things they tell you is reading out PowerPoint only goes so far. Slides are a great visual learning tool but they should be assisting the trainer, not the sole focus. You should summarise the text and elaborate on it. Reading it out word for word is not engaging and eventually you will lose your audience’s interest. You should be breaking it up with group discussion, activities and individual reading.

Feedback is vital to a trainer for knowing what they are doing right and what needs work, and it can be very illuminating. You should be using it to improve your sessions and make them better. Getting 10/10 each time isn’t helpful to you or your future trainees.

Did you have a chance to write comments or was it just ratings?

Don’t feel bad, I doubt she did really and if she didn’t she needs a thicker skin for training.

[Athena51]

6/10 seems pretty generous to be honest

If she only gets ridiculously positive and inflated feedback how on earth is she ever going to improve?

You were in no way BU.

[mostdays]

I got hauled over the coals years ago for giving honest, negative feedback. Pulled in to my manager's office to speak with her and her manager, as the training manager had complained that my feedback had 'upset' the trainers. It was the first time I ever raised my voice back to a manager actually, and I refused to sign their record of our 'discussion', asking them instead to make it formal and get HR involved. Funnily enough they did not do that.

I had the immense satisfaction over the coming weeks of all of my colleagues who were sent on the training course coming back and exclaiming about what an utter waste of time it was, how the content was irrelevant and often inaccurate, how the delivery was very poor and the sessions badly structured.

[malmi]

Your colleagues haven't done her any favours.

[JosellaPlayton]

If they don’t want feedback they shouldn’t ask for it. From what you’ve described 6/10 sounds like an over inflated score anyway so don’t feel guilty.