Trainers Club Launched

Meet agent of change, Altaab Khan.

He is the founder of the inaugural Trainers Club called the Organisation Development and Culture change Agents.

Altaab, as he is commonly called, is a learning and development enthusiast and has been a Human Resource HR Trainer in Fiji for 15 plus years in various diverse organisations.

Reflection

As he shared his story with SunBiz, he highlighted that he got inspired by the activities carried out by the Fiji Human Resources Institute, he said: “a thought ran across my mind, which was to establish this forum to help build strong “Trainers & Coach’s” in our Beautiful Isles of Fiji”.

“This is one of our nation building Initiatives that we are working on."

“When I reflect back on my own career, I had started as a training instructor, to training officer, then to training manager, Director of Learning and Development and to my current role as a Senior Partner Learning and Capability."

“In my early days in this adventure, we were deprived of resource availability or people that could actually coach and mentor you.

“But today our people are very lucky to have more advanced technology, resources and availability of people to turn to for guidance.

“Hence this Club promotes the same, absolute learning and growing.

“I have been engaged with many incredible talents in the field of Capacity development."

“My focus was to get everyone to network and nurture more talented Training Champions which would benefit the workforce in our country."

“I do know that organisations source out international Trainers and Coach and high level speakers."

“However I look at this forum to motivate, build and learn to be of the same calibre,” Mr Khan said.

Growth

Currently there are two executive members in the Trainers Club:

- Fazilat Farzana Ali who is the Training Officer for Tappoo Group of Companies, and

- Shanil Chetty plays the role of a Digital Executive and he is the founder of Youth Fiji and he is a Programmer by Profession.

“I would like to take this moment to invite the rest of the Trainers who would like to become part of our Learning network to join us and help us grow talents in Fiji.

“Our country has a lot of graduates and experienced individuals who are doing wonders in their spaces.

“Just imagine if we all start working together, the magic that we can create in nurturing and creating more talented people in Fiji.”

The Trainers Club officially launched its first session past Saturday.

“We were extremely delighted to have Kameli Batiweti, the CEO of Fiji Employers Federation and President of Fiji Human Resources Institute, to open our first virtual session.

“Mr Batiweti shared his story about being a “Training Manager” in his career path and the success that he attained from his experiences which motivated the rest of the participants.”

Below is an excerpt of an interview with Mr Khan:

Why was the Trainers Club formed?

The establishment has many beautiful reasons

1.Benchmarking Best Practices

2. Understand the larger scope of the role as a Trainer, Facilitator, Coach

3. See different methodologies of carrying out Learning & Development tasks

4. Collaborate with each other and involve them with activities, say for example the session will include trainers to choose a topic of conversation which they are very passionate about and then share with other trainers for the purpose of learning from each other

5. Upgrade skills Post Pandemic to share what’s working out well and what is not

6. Guest speakers, specialists, and international Coaches will be invited as part of the forecasted session to elevate the confidence levels of our Fijian Trainers.

How Many Members So Far?

I had initially spoken to a few seniors in the industry and sent out a Viber Link for expression of interest to Join this club.

The results were amazing, we have now 171 members on this Viber network.

We will do an election and form an Executive team and also divide our Talk Shows, Sessions and interaction, perhaps one team in the Suva area and other in the west.

We will soon announce a face to face session when the environment is a lot safer.

What Are The Areas Of Interest For Organisation Development And Culture Change Agents?

The activities will involve:

- networking with other trainers in the country, get to know what they do,

-how they overcome similar challenges,

-what are some benchmarking practices, learn from each other’s experiences,

-share resources where possible, be a guide, mentor to peers, involve each other to share their talents

-and the most important one is to “Personal Brand”.

There is a pressing need post pandemic for all of us to unlearn to relearn.

The whole learning strategy or dynamics has changed, given that now that digitalisation has taken a toll, we need to start preparing our learners to the new norms of learning and growing.

Introduction to platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft teams, and many more such technologies out there, requires us to teach the right etiquette to our people, get them to adapt to it and most of all enjoy all these innovative approaches.

Trainers will now need to start focusing on learning subjects such as:

1. Emotional Agility and Intelligence

2. Resilience and Adaptability

3. Mental and Emotional wellness

4. Mindfulness

5. Diversity and Inclusion

6. Leaders to be more “Coaches’ then traditional “Managers”

7. Psychological Safety

8. Cognitive behavioural therapies or Counselling interventions

Hence this club will focus on most of it and other technical aspects for cross learning.

How can a trainer be part of the Trainers Club?

To be part of this, one needs to be in the field of training, passionate about developing themselves and other.

They should have done programmes such as Training of the Trainers, Certificate IV in Training & Assessments, or industry experience as a Trainer, Coach, Mentor, Training Officers, Training Managers or Training Executives.

We will also welcome all the emerging trainers or those aspiring to be one in the coming future, however they are currently working in a similar role, even if in a Junior Training position.

Feedback: maraia.vula@fijisun.com.fj