Going into my first job I had no basis on what to expect. Having worked since 2018 and having had 3 different jobs, I see now that the training you get in the beginning and during the job becomes very important in job performance.

I was a server at a small restaurant for my first job and was trained by different servers depending on who was scheduled that day. The biggest reason I felt that the training was not beneficial was because they wouldn’t allow me to try things that they taught and only allowed me to watch which ended up hurting my performance after training ended. There were many gaps in my knowledge and since I hadn’t practiced the skills myself, I had to learn them on the job. I believe this is a flaw in the design of the training. More specifically, it didn’t ensure a transfer of training and didn’t make the training meaningful as we learned in Lecture 1 of Week 6 on Training.

In comparison, I felt as though the training I received at Starbucks was very beneficial. It consists of doing modules then putting that knowledge to the test by doing the tasks explained in the modules. The training was also scheduled in a away where we knew exactly what we were learning every day and I also had a designated trainer so they always knew where we were in training. The transition from training to being independent felt smooth and I felt like I was put in a position to succeed. Even now we still get modules occasionally to brush up on old or new skills. As we learned in Lecture 2 of Week 6 on Evaluating Training Effectiveness, this would be a pre/post measure since we get tested after training.

References:

W6 Lecture 1 – Training

W6 Lecture 2 – Evaluating Training Effectiveness