Are your employees engaging with your training program at an appropriate level? Are your employees completing the required number of courses by the deadline? If your employees are not participating in a manner that you desire or they are not completing their training courses, there are ways for your organization to achieve better outcomes from your training program. Here are a few action steps you can take to immediately drive increased employee participation:
Seeking direct input from your employees by utilizing feedback surveys is one way to identify what is and is not working for them. In this context, your employees are like your customers, so you simply have to ask them what they want and how you can make the training programs more engaging. This approach can help you achieve remarkable employee participation as long as you make changes based on the survey findings. Make sure you keep the surveys short and to the point. It shouldn’t take more than two to three minutes to fill it out. Keeping the survey anonymous will yield the best results.
You need to prepare yourself to receive constructive feedback. The entire exercise will prove pointless if you choose to do nothing even after you are made aware the current methods aren’t working. You should make the entire process transparent by publishing the results of the survey and keeping your employees apprised of the changes being made in response to their feedback. Let them know you are grateful for their feedback and that the organization is committed to making the workplace training program more engaging. The next time they take a training course, they will pay extra attention for evidence of the changes.
With all the new technologies available today, there are alternatives to the traditional classroom environment. Classroom training can be boring, time-consuming, and costly. You need to hire a trainer and perhaps rent space. Course materials need to be printed and provided to the participants. Training must be provided to groups of employees at one sitting which does not permit for individual, staggered training. Classroom training is not the most productive training method. If you are still employing this method, it may be time to start transferring content to new online delivery methods designed to better engage learners, reduce cost, drive efficiencies, and improve productivity.
The top complaints you typically hear about traditional learning methods are usually along the lines of it’s too long,too boring, too old or too inconvenient. For that reason, you need to employ micro-learning methods as they are more effective and consistent in the way that people learn and retain information naturally. Content can easily be kept up-to-date and relevant in real time. Utilizing micro-learning will improve your workplace training programs and make them more engaging.
Many times your employees may not be engaging with your workplace training programs because they aren’t aware of it. It’s a challenge many training professionals face. They forget the part where employees need to be informed about the value they will obtain from attending and participating in the training program. You have to develop motivators that will make them want to participate.
Many training professionals feel the marketing of the program is complete as soon as it goes live and a short memo is sent to the employees. This is a rather common mistake and if you intend to get the most out of your training programs, you should avoid it. Consider your training program as a product that needs to be consumed. To gain customers, you need advertisements or some sort of medium that will make the consumer want to buy the product.
Similarly, with employees you have to show them how the training program will improve their skills and knowledge. The marketing has to be done cleverly and consistently so that the employees are continuously participating. New employees should be exposed to the training program during their onboarding as an expectation for all employees who work for the organization. The quality training that you provide for your employees should be presented as a value-added benefit.
The best approach to improve the quality and participation level for your corporate training is to obtain professional help for developing your new eLearning training program to bolster employee engagement and ensure you attain the desired results from the training. For more information on how we can help design, develop, and market your training contact us today!
