The combination of pedagogy and power tool manufacturing might seem a little bit odd, but not to Mirka Academy’s training manager, Mr Ulf-Peter Åstrand. He sees many advantages in educating the global sales teams at the company in pedagogy. Mirka Academy teamed up with the Centre for Lifelong Learning at Åbo Akademi University to boost the skills of the global sales teams within the sales training programme “Train the Trainer”.

Nowadays, many companies choose to build their own platforms for their own continuous learning efforts. In that regard, Mirka, a company operating globally with headquarters in Jeppo, Finland, is no exception. Their own Mirka Academy offers a wide range of educational programmes, focusing mainly on products and tutorials.

– When we started planning the “Train the Trainer” programme, I wanted to offer something more, something extra, to the sales representatives, says training manager Ulf-Peter Åstrand.

In order to do that, he contacted the Centre for Lifelong Learning at Åbo Akademi University (CLL). With CLL’s educational planners, he began to develop an educational module in pedagogy, group leadership, reflective working methods and presentation technique, which was included in the “Train the Trainer” programme.

Since the programme was also open to participants from the company’s global employees, the programme was taught in English.

– One of our goals was to have the sales representatives see their work in a meta perspective and be able to verbalise all parts of the process and to analyse their work from planning to executing and also to reflect on and evaluate the results. It is important to ask oneself the difficult questions: What did I present and how was it understood? Why am I sometimes succeeding, but sometimes not? Answers to these questions can be found within pedagogy and communication, says Ulf-Peter Åstrand.

– In the beginning of the course, some of the participants maybe didn’t quite understand the necessity of this kind of skills, and some might even have been a bit sceptical. Most of participants come to these trainings hoping to learn practical skills and to gain knowledge directly related to specific tasks. I am, however, convinced that your work will improve, if you learn the theory behind delivering your message and information in the best possible way.

– In my opinion, the educators were very successful in creating engagement among the participants. The methods and tasks were well adapted to the participants, who then were able to put theory into practice and to realise how the theory was connected to their everyday work. Some participants weren’t that used to this type of studying, but I assured them to trust the process.

What about the results? According to Ulf-Peter Åstrand, the participants were convinced that they had gained a new type of understanding of the sales process and a new vocabulary for describing their work.

– I hope they also gained confidence in sales situations. Using pedagogical tools, you can really excel at customer relations and selling, says Ulf-Peter Åstrand.

Another stated goal was that those participants who were certified by Mirka Academy after completing the “Train the Trainer” programme should begin to function as trainers at their own organisations.

In this video Mr. Ulf-Peter Åstrand tell us more about the planning of the Train the trainer programme. The videon is edited by Petronella Bergfors and contains videoclips from Mirka. Please choose English subtitels. 

– We will now, in various ways, follow up those who participated in the programme and give them the opportunity to continue sharing their experiences with each other. They will also train more salespeople in their own teams. The process is not yet finished.

– This initiative aims to develop and enhance the learning culture globally within our organisation. We want learning to become an integral part of everyone’s work in various ways, and therefore, we are also committed to providing various learning opportunities. We already offer a fairly broad range of training options,” says Åstrand.

He believes that there is a lot within pedagogy that can be beneficial for the industry, even if the combination power tools and accessories may not be the first thing that comes to mind.

– If we pay attention to learning, teaching and communication and to what happens in interaction with people, and how we present our product or service, I believe it contributes to the development of the business as a whole.

Are you also interested in staff training or continuous learning? The Centre for Lifelong Learning at Åbo Akademi University offers tailored training programmes for municipalities, public organisations, and the third sector, as well as development and research projects, and planning and execution of conferences and seminars.

We look forward to new collaborations!