How to Improve Your Employee Training
90% of employee training doesn’t work. Companies think theirs is great. Employees vehemently disagree. Here are 6 easy wins to elevate your training:
USE REAL PEOPLE
Oftentimes companies offer up their training by dumping a PDF or PowerPoint slides with audio on their employees thinking it will work. Aside from being boring, it is impossible to appeal to multiple learning styles and passionately convey the information you need. No PDFs, slides, AI bot, etc… use a real person, looking them in the eye. They want authenticity, not to be bored to death.
EXPLAIN WHY THEIR ROLE MATTERS
Many companies never establish “here is what we do around here, this is why we do it and this is how your role matters in delivering that.” People want to matter. They want to be heard. They want to have an impact. The janitor at NASA put a man on the moon.
CEO SHARES PAST/PRESENT/FUTURE
Many organizations are too big or spread out for the head of the company to meet individually with each new team member. However, she can sit in her office for an hour and record a talk passionately sharing where the company has been, where it is now and where it is headed. The right leader is able to inspire her team from day one if this is done right.
WEAVE IN YOUR CULTURE
Many companies complain that they’ve lost their culture. Obviously the pandemic and remote work is an easy excuse. But the real culprit is often poor training. Employees increasingly have little to no understanding of the company culture and how they should behave in alignment with it. So they just wing it and the leaders of the company are left to wonder “what in the heck happened to our culture?” (You stopped telling people what it is, how it plays out in their role & holding them accountable to it)
ESTABLISH “THE STANDARD”
Regardless of role, everyone in your organization should understand the core of what you do and how you want it delivered. This could be an exceptional user experience through your software or a beautiful customer experience in your retail location. Help your team understand what you want delivered every time and how their role helps facilitate this.
Your training doesn’t have to go from a 3 out of 10 to a 10 out of 10 overnight. Continue making it better over time and watch what happens. You’ll attract better people. They’ll stay longer. They’ll better align with your culture. Better business results will follow.
Most leaders don’t understand how stupid old boring training correlates with business results. But it does. Far more than they realize.
Exceptional Training = Better Results
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Tom Healy is passionate about helping organizations drive higher performance from their people. He believes everyone has incredible potential inside of us but it is worthless unless we discover it and use it. Through his interactive keynotes, he helps individuals and organizations reach their peak potential.