In a recent lunchtime discussion, I was asked “what turns people off training?”
The question was addressed to me as I have been involved in the training world for 35 years and although most of that time was spent presenting classroom training, I now have a passion for microlearning.
The short answer to my lunch time question was “boredom” and “lack of relevance”. Training is like most things in life it needs to be sold. Or more to the point it needs to be packaged in a way that the audience wants to buy it. It doesn’t matter whether they need the training it won’t happen unless they are excited by the topic and introduction so that they want to buy into it.
Top sales people do intense research into what their prospects hot button will be and they concentrate their effort into channelling the prospect into that area. However, it’s not always easy to create training that gets your learners excited – especially with the drier subjects we often need to teach (you’ll know what these are!). However, if you invest time and energy into creating and building a culture of training in your business, you can keep staff interested and excited about their training sessions, be they classroom or on-line. I would like to share some ideas of how this can be achieved.
- Skill of the Month Campaign
Each month every employee is encouraged to focus on a particular skill. So, it might be “safety around machines month”, “Customer Service month” or “Watch your waste month”. Content is the released to support your “Skill of the month”.
2. Use Pre-learning
The cost of assembling people for classroom learning is usually budgeted at 40% – 50% of the training cost. You can make your training day more effective by asking all delegates to take an online course as a precursor to the live event.
This means that everyone is at the same level at the start of the course and they can move forward at a faster pace with better understanding. The facilitator can then direct the methodology towards discussion and application rather than introduction of new material. Use Modlettes as an ideal vehicle for this pre-work.
3. Using Development Review Meetings
During appraisal meetings, issues are often raised and training requirements identified. Having a library of courses available to then service those skills gaps gives you a fast and low-cost solution.
4. Increase Your User Engagement
Many companies have invested a large amount into a learning management system to deliver their organisational development strategy. Then the real challenge is winning over the hearts and minds of their team and encouraging the right behaviour to create a learning culture.
With learning platforms “content is king”. By using content developed within the company using company products, services and people makes the learning far more realistic and engaging.
Remember, above all to engage your learners, “content is king” and interactivity promotes engagement.