Holding training sessions that are forgotten by the next day is a pointless, thankless task. As entrepreneurs, we all understand their necessity, yet the expense and time that goes into organizing them mean that unless they make a difference, they’re a waste of valuable resources.
But you would be a fool to do away with them entirely. According to statistics by Bizlibrary: “65 percent of employees say the quality of training and learning opportunities at work positively influences their engagement.” Considering that companies with engaged workers outperform their rivals by 202 percent, training sessions really do matter.
So what can you do? To start, you need to change their content and delivery. You have to find ways of making your employees sit up and take notice of what you’re saying, and the onus is all on you. Luckily, we have plenty of handy tips to help.
#1: Use Varied Teaching Methods
Everyone learns in a different way, and in order to make the content of your training sessions understandable to all, you have to find multiple methods of presenting it. Yes, audio and visual delivery can still be utilized, but try to also incorporate aspects that involve your employees getting their hands dirty: give them case studies to work on, offer interactive learning via online tasks and tests, have them create infographics on what they’ve learned… The more ways you can find to deliver information, the more likely it is to stay with them.
#2: Break It into Bite-Sized Chunks
Although you’re working with adults, our brains are not so very different from those of children, so it pays to take a leaf out of the book of educational institutions. If you keep going for long enough, anyone’s mind is going to lose focus. People’s thoughts will wander, and their ability to concentrate will wane. The trick is not to overload them. Deliver your training sessions in sections, keeping each one short and sweet. In between, take breaks, even if this is only to discuss between themselves and with their session provider the aspects that they have found most interesting.
Here is how you can make your employees work as a team for your small business.
#3: Provide an Inspiring Learning Environment for Training
It’s not only about how you deliver training sessions, but also where you do your teaching. There are multiple studies to suggest that our creativity is stifled by closed-in spaces and uninspiring aesthetics. Providing spaces that foster ingenuity and focus, they offer the perfect opportunity to keep things interesting by taking your employees out of their everyday environment and placing them in a new and inspiring one.
Warning
Here are some proven ways to improve your employee efficiency.
When it comes to providing successful training sessions for your employees, it’s your job to fully facilitate their learning opportunities. Set them up to succeed in any way you can, so they not only know that you care but can learn the skills they need to help your company thrive. Invest in people, and one day they’ll invest in you: invest their loyalty, invest their time, and invest their effort. With such a backbone to support you, professional success is surely inevitable.
