Have you ever started a job, trained for the position, and then you didn’t revisit most of the information you learned?
Training should be an ongoing part of any job, but often that training only comes in the form of a new process or product where it is necessary to learn it. You should have ongoing training as part of your teams positions. This can be industry specific training, training on leadership if they have leadership abilities, and opportunities for personal development.
The problem with most training is there isn’t a strategy behind it and most of what is learned is forgotten 24 hours later.
Trainings should always lead to increased effectiveness. It should help the individual see what they are doing and how they do it fits into the larger organizational picture.
Here are 4 tips on how to train in your organization to increase effectiveness and efficiency (and don’t forget engagement) in the workplace:
1. Create a Training Plan
If your company doesn’t have a training plan, that is where you need to start. You need to have a plan on what an employee at your company needs to know to be successful. Write out that process, starting with the fundamentals in your business.
From there, you can see what areas they need more training on and can supplement along the way.
2. Know how each person on your team learns.
There are 3 basic ways people learn. Auditory, Visual, and Kinesthetic.
Those who are auditory learners do better when they hear the information. They learn when they hear tone and inflection in the words being spoken.
Visual learners need to see it. This can be watching a video or reading the information. They learn and retain it more when they see it with their own eyes.
Kinesthetic learners need to do it. They learn best by doing it.
Some people use a combination of the three. Understanding how your team learns will allow you to set up the training so they learn in the best way for them.
Hint: If you set up your trainings to have all 3 types of learning then your team will have the opportunity to learn in the their preferred method.
3. Have them participate.
If you let your team know they will be required to participate, they will pay attention and be more focused. This can include using employees as trainers, role-playing, and answering questions, to name a few.
Involving your team members allows for them to learn the content even better.
4. Create a way for them to practice what they learned.
Studies show that within one day of a training, people will have forgotten 50-70% of what they learned in the previous 24 hours.
What a waste of time if your employees don’t remember!
A simple way to help them retain the information is to provide learning opportunities over the following two weeks from the training. This could be in the form of follow up videos. This could be in the form of doing the activity several times to show mastery. The point is, you want to have ways for your team to engage with the content past the official training time.
Americans spent an estimated $83 billion dollars on corporate training in 2020.
Make sure that whatever training you are doing in your organization is beneficial to the bottom line and is retained for maximum effectiveness.
If you have encouraged networking in your organization, what are some of the benefits you have seen?
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Stephanie German is a business strategist, adjunct professor, and speaker. She holds a master’s degree in organizational leadership and loves giving back to her community in a variety of ways. When she’s not coaching clients or writing about leadership, Stephanie is usually headed to the mountains or the beach with her family, drinking savory wine, or working on the latest project with her husband. Stephanie’s greatest desires are to raise up the next generation of leaders while raising her own children to be strong, independent, and brave. She lives in Fresno, California with her husband Blake and her three spunky daughters, Cara, Kinsey, and Peyton. She is the best-selling author of So Your Boss Can’t Lead?