by Venchito Tampon | Last Updated on July 22, 2025
Creating effective training programs starts with intentional training design. Whether the goal is to upskill teams, train new leaders, or roll out a culture initiative, well-structured and co-partnered training design ensures that learning of your target beneficiaries aligns with performance outcomes.
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At Rainmakers, we apply this same approach in designing and delivering corporate training programs for companies across the Philippines. Every session is grounded in learning fundamentals and objectives, supported by practical methodologies, and aligned with business needs.
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This guide outlines the step-by-step process behind successful training we design and actually deliver (and the exact framework that top-ranked Filipino trainers have used) – we include here what training design is, why it matters, and how to build training programs that work.
If you’re an HR professional, L&D practitioner, subject matter expert, or a leader in your organization tasked with developing people, let’s begin with a shift in perspective.
What is Training Design?
Training design is the process of planning and structuring a corporate training program to achieve specific learning outcomes for target beneficiaries or participants.
The training design process often includes setting clear learning objectives, selecting relevant topical content, choosing effective training methodologies, and organizing sessions into a logical flow that is more likely to engage participants.
Training design aims to ensure that learners gain the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitude (three components of competence) they need to succeed in their roles.
Why Training Design Matters in Philippine Workplaces
In a competitive, fast-changing, and budget-conscious work environment in the Philippines, organizations can no longer afford to run training programs that don’t produce results.
Training design is the foundation that turns learning into performance.
A corporate training program must serve a clear purpose. If it lacks goals, content may be too broad or too much for the time given. Activities could be engaging but disconnected from actual job roles and learning outcomes. As a result, employees will leave the session with little understanding or new skill acquisition to apply what they’ve learned.
Training design is essential for the following reasons:
The training meets real learning needs.
Learning design starts with clearly understanding what employees need to learn, not just what the organization wants to teach. The keyword is “need.” This will avoid generic content and ensure relevance for every module.
The training supports business goals.
Ultimately, corporate training programs must connect learning with desired business outcomes, such as improving customer service satisfaction, increasing individual productivity among team members, or training new leaders with specific competencies. When training design is well planned, these specific business objectives will be achieved.
The methods used match how Filipino learners engage best.
Full lecture training programs won’t work for Filipino learners. Training design ensures you include interactive activities, group discussions, case studies, role-playing sessions, and real-life examples from the facilitator to keep participants engaged from start to end of the training session.
The learning leads to real change.
Employees need to use their new insights and skills. A good training design increases the chance that new skills, knowledge, and changes in behavior will actually show up on the job.
What Makes a Good Training Design?
An effective training design ensures that learning is understood, applied, and aligned with real job needs. These five elements can help you strengthen your training design, especially in the Philippine workplace:
1. Clear Learning Objectives
Training must begin with clear, specific objectives. These objectives define what the training’s target beneficiaries should know, do, or improve after the session. Without clear goals, L&D, HR practitioners, or training facilitators must choose the right content or assess learning outcomes.
In most Philippine organizations, learning objectives help secure stakeholders’ buy-in and align expectations.
2. Aligned Content and Methods
The content should directly support the training objectives, and the methods should fit the type of learning required—whether knowledge, skills, or behavior. For example, if the objective is to improve customer handling, the training design must include scenarios, role-plays, or simulations that match the content to the actual work scenario.
3. Structured Flow of Learning
Training must follow a logical flow – from setting the context, delivering the content, applying the learning, and ending with reflection or reinforcement. An organized session often stems from a structured flow with a clear path from theory to practice.
4. Evaluation of Learning and Performance
Training is only practical if it produces change. Good training design often includes methods to assess if learning occurred. Training methodologies include quizzes, observation, feedback forms, and post-training evaluations.
In the Philippines, many companies use Level 1 (reaction) and Level 2 (learning evaluations) from the Kirkpatrick Model, but stronger training designs also aim for Level 3 (behavior) and Level 4 (results).
5. Localization for the Philippine Context
Training is more effective when it reflects the learners’ language, culture, and realities. For Filipino employees, relatable examples, Taglish explanations, group activities, and respect for hierarchy often improve engagement, learning retention, and comprehension.
Localization in training design includes adjusting delivery based on learner profiles, such as customizing content for beginners to intermediate levels that best suit rank-and-file staff rather than supervisors.
Step-by-Step Training Design Process
Designing practical training follows a straightforward process. Each step builds on the last – from identifying training needs to organizing how they will learn it to measuring results.
Here’s a step-by-step training design process that you can follow:
1. Training Needs Analysis (TNA)
Conduct a training needs analysis session. Start by identifying what employees need to learn to improve performance.
You can use simple tools to collect data, such as:
- Surveys: Ask your target employees what tasks are complex or where performance is lacking. Make questions easy to understand enough for them to answer the survey. You can use this training needs analysis template.
- Interviews: Speak with key training beneficiaries to understand their job challenges and skill gaps.
- Focus group discussions (FGDs): Group conversations help uncover shared issues, facilitate follow-up questions to learn about training needs.
After gathering data, you can list specific performance gaps, group similar needs, and translate each gap into a learning goal.
From there, you can prioritize based on urgency, business impact, and number of people affected. The result should be a short list of learning outcomes linked to real job requirements.
2. Define Learning Objectives
After identifying learning needs, define the training objectives. Start with clear, measurable goals that describe the expected learning outcome.
Begin with terminal objectives.
Terminal objectives are the primary learning outcomes a training program aims to achieve. They describe exactly what participants should be able to do or accomplish at the end of the program.
Here are a couple of examples of learning objectives:
- For consultative sales training program: “Deliver a structured sales pitch to a client using the SPIN technique.”
- For customer service training: “Resolve customer complaints using the 4-step handling method.”
- For leadership development training: “Facilitate a productive team meeting using a structured agenda and action planning format.”
- For Excel training program: “Create a monthly report using spreadsheet functions and visual data summaries.”
- For HR or admin staff on work-from-home training: “Apply the company’s work-from-home policy to common employee scenarios and requests.”
Next, break these down into enabling objectives.
Enabling objectives are smaller steps or skills that support the terminal objective.
Referring to our given example earlier, here are examples for enabling objectives.
Terminal Objective: Deliver a structured sales pitch to a client using the SPIN technique.
Enabling Objectives:
- Identify the four components of the SPIN selling model
- Formulate need-based questions relevant to a customer profile
- Organize sales points into a logical sequence
- Practice delivery using tone, pacing, and product knowledge
Then, you use Bloom’s Taxonomy to choose action verbs that reflect the level of learning. Avoid vague verbs like “understand” or “know”. Instead, use words like “describe”, “demonstrate”, “analyze”, or “apply”.
Write each objective to be:
- Specific: Clear about what is expected. For example, “Draft a meeting agenda with three key discussion points” is more specific than “Prepare for a meeting.”
- Measurable: Observe through activity, deliverable, or output. Example: “Insert a line chart to show monthly sales trends” allows facilitators to see if the learner can do the task.”
- Achievable: Realistic within the time and format of training. For example, “List the four steps of the complaint handling method” is achievable in a one-hour session. In contrast, “Master advanced conflict resolution” may require longer or follow-up training.
Well-written objectives are the foundation for selecting content, methods, and assessment and evaluation tools.
3. Organizing Content Into Competency-Based Modules
After defining clear learning objectives, group related skills, knowledge, and behavioral actions into modules based on the core competencies required for the job or role.
Each module of the training program should develop a specific competency or sub-competency.
The first step is to identify core competencies.
Step 1: Identify Core Competencies
Based on the terminal and enabling objectives of the training, group them based on the competencies required to perform the job effectively.
Training Objectives → Grouped Competencies
Competency becomes the module of the training program.
For instance, if you’re designing a training program for customer service associates, the first competency they need to perform their jobs is customer handling.
At the basic level, customer handling has essential points or topics:
- Types of customer complaints
- The 4-step complaint resolution process
- Empathy and tone in customer service
- Techniques to manage and de-escalate irate customers
These topics and the competency form the first module, in this case, “Module 1: Handling Customer Complaints”.
Step 2: Define Module Activities and Tools
Each module should include a mix of methods that support knowledge building, skill application, and behavior change.
Here are specific activities you can include in our earlier module about handling customer complaints. Choose only one to conduct after the lecture for the first module.
- Case analysis: Review real customer complaint cases and identify response gaps
- Role-play: Practice responding to customer complaints using the 4-step method
- Video review: Watch sample calls and assess tone, language, and resolution
- Group exercise: De-escalation practice with rotating scenarios
With these training activities, here are the tools you need for the first activity:
- Slide deck with complaint categories and steps
- Company complaint handling flowchart or SOP
- Sample customer profiles and complaint scripts
- Evaluation rubric for role-play feedback
- Videos showing examples of poor vs. effective responses
Activities will vary depending on your objective, experience, delivery, and training flow.
Step 3: Sequence and Finalize Modules for Delivery
After designing each module with its competency, topics, activities, and tools, the final step is to arrange the modules in a logical learning sequence and review the overall design for alignment, flow, and feasibility.
You can start with foundational competencies before moving to complex ones. This will help you begin immediately without feeling overwhelmed.
Build each module so that the learner gains confidence and skills progressively.
You should also check for alignment, as you want to ensure each module supports the terminal objectives of the corporate training program. Confirm that all topics, methods, and activities build the intended competency.
Balance time and delivery format. Imagine how the training program will be facilitated in a real scenario. Review the time needed for each activity and adjust modules for one-hour, half-day, or full-day sessions depending on beneficiaries’ available schedules and your training delivery plan.
4. Planning Training Logistics
Once the training modules are finalized, the next step is to prepare all logistical elements that support the smooth delivery of the training program. Planning logistics allows you to provide consistent and engaging content and an engaging experience for target beneficiaries.
Start by listing the materials needed for each module. As mentioned, these may include slides, handouts, role-play scripts, activity sheets, props, case studies, and assessment forms.
You can prepare either a printed or digital copy or both, depending on the delivery format, whether the training program is conducted in person, virtual, or hybrid.
For in-house non-outsource training programs, you can assign in-house trainers to facilitate each module or entire training program. Clarify who will lead the module, facilitate group activities, and answer questions after each module.
All facilitators must be familiar with the session flow and the expected output from each module.
Logistical planning for corporate training programs in the Philippines also often requires extra attention to venue readiness and participant availability. For in-person corporate training sessions, ensure sound systems, projectors, flipcharts, or other drawing boards are available in the venue.
Test platform stability (Zoom, Teams) for virtual sessions, and ensure backup internet or mobile hotspot access in case of internet connection issues.
The best way to run efficient training programs is to assign support roles, including tech support and co-facilitators. A well-organized support team can help trainers focus on actual delivery while participants stay engaged without delays or disruptions.
5. Designing Evaluation Tools
Training evaluation confirms whether training achieves its objectives. It also helps measure what participants learned, how they apply it, and whether it has a significant effect on their daily jobs.
One of the practical and widely used approaches to evaluate training programs is the Kirkpatrick Model, which has four levels of evaluation:
- Reaction – How did participants feel about the training?
- Learning – What did they learn during the session?
- Behavior – Are they applying what they learned on the job?
- Results – Did the training create measurable business impact?
Start by linking evaluation tools to the learning objectives of the training program.
For knowledge-based modules, you can use pre-and post-tests, quizzes, and short-written exercises. For skill-based modules, use role-plays, simulations, or demonstration checklists. For behavior change, collect feedback from supervisors on the impact of training on job performance days, weeks, or even months after the training program.
In the Philippines, the most commonly used tools include:
- Post-training surveys (Level 1): Short feedback forms completed immediately after the session
- Knowledge checks or practical tasks (Level 2): Simple tests or exercises done during or after the module
- Follow-up supervisor feedback (Level 3): Observations or check-ins conducted 2 to 4 weeks post-training
- Basic tracking of performance indicators (Level 4): When applicable, companies may monitor KPIs like customer satisfaction scores, sales performance, or error rates
Well-designed evaluation tools will provide the necessary data to assess training effectiveness and improve future training sessions.
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