Dan Belanger
You know the drill. The owner of the business says: “Gosh, we paid all that money for training and I can’t see what it has done for us. Never again!” Consider the thoughts below and perhaps they will ease your pain.
Start at the top. Executive management must make it clear that they support education. It never hurts for an executive to attend some of the sessions with their respective staff. Demonstrate that you have a genuine interest in their success.
Identify how your audience learns. Some people like graphics; such as pie charts and the like, some like lots of text; so they can highlight points of interest, and some like visual; like pictures. Some like humor and some are more serious and some like example based; “show me” rather than place me in a classroom environment. Some like an instructor that uses a lot of non-verbal communication such as facial expressions and the like. The important fact is that we are people and not clones.
There must be a tangible reason for training and the audience needs to fully understand this. Many people will attend educational sessions with the “My boss told me I had to be here” or “Why am I here? attitude. Let them know the why and the potential results.
Document what the employee will accomplish and work with them to ensure the improvements actually take place. Before attending the training program, the employee should document what they hope to take away from the session and you should help them with this. Then when the session is over, you need to meet with the person and review the results. Then the two of you should set objectives and as part of their performance review (I call it their success review), be sure and refer to the plans you made. Sorry, but you MUST take an interest.
Acknowledge that education should be given in manageable segments.Don’t expect a person to retain all the material presented in an eight hour session. Make the sessions smaller and let those in attendance absorb and put into practice the information presented. When I attend a conference, my objective is to walk away with three essential ideas that I can begin to implement when I return to work.
Allow your employee base to continue to attend webinars and other training programs. Abe Lincoln once said “If I had 8 hours to fell a tree, I’d spend 7 sharpening my axe.” On average a person must hear new information three times (some say seven) before it registers in their mind for immediate recollection. We all have varying levels and methods of learning and remembering. Training and Education are a never ending process and even though it takes them away from the work the long term benefit should be remarkable.
Vary the type of training you provide. Mix it up between classroom and where the work actually takes place. Train one-on-one and train in small and larger groups.
Have your staff work at other jobs in the company. Allow them to experience first hand how the quality of their work impacts their team members and the customer. Gosh, why not let the pick and pack group sit in the customer service rep’s chair for a day. That will wake them up.
