One of the best ways to improve your training is to introduce some interaction. Often, training is just a one-way conversation. While things may have been explained perfectly, your important information may not stick in the minds of employees.
Your goal should be to have the training remembered and acted upon as part of an ongoing commitment. With the investment of a little time and effort, you can improve the retention. Consider these training tips:
Repeat and Explain
After you’ve outlined the training, have someone in the audience explain the process and why it is important. You don’t want an employee just reading it off a sheet or regurgitating a memorized section. You want them to put it in their own words. When you have to explain something, you remember and understand it much better.
Make this less like a test and more like a game show. Some groups like the challenge of having to explain the new policy through a performed story or song. Having people work as teams can reduce some of the pressure of presenting to an audience.
By having several people take part in this exercise, you’re having the training repeated in an engaging way. You couldn’t get the same repetitive value from just saying it again and again from the podium.
Reward Participation
Have some prizes for those who participate, regardless of how well they perform. Simply handing out some Starbucks or Apple gift cards is a subtle way of telling people the information you’re providing is important and they should listen.
Use the Responses to Improve Your Training
Ever see people ignore a sidewalk in favor of cutting across some grass? They’ve found a shortcut. Over time, the shortcut becomes a visible path of its own and the preferred way to go. The same may apply to your training. It may be good but not quite right.
In the boardroom, your new way of doing things may have made perfect sense. Those on the front lines may see things differently.
This should not be thought of as an adversarial situation. If employees can find a flaw in a process, then see if you can work together to improve things. It will make the process more effective and give employees some ownership.
Explain Why to Improve Your Training
It’s natural for people to have some resistance to change. But when a new policy is presented with little explanation, is it a surprise it’s not warmly embraced?
Make sure people know why the change is needed, even if it’s the result of bad news. If you can show a path to a better tomorrow, then people will rally, even if it involves some initial discomfort with the change.
Does your next meeting need something special?
