The best training program in the world isn't worth a hill of beans if you're unable to get your employees to engage in training. Every employer has points where they struggle with employee engagement, especially during the training period, but the good employers realize that sometimes the key is taking a step back and exploring new techniques and ideas. Here are some great tips to help engage employees in training.
Ask Your Employees for Input
One of the biggest mistakes employers make is creating a training program and assuming it's perfect. Asking their employees for feedback about the training process never occurs to them. The truth is that asking for feedback is one of the best ways to help current and future employees engage in training.
Employee feedback helps you:
- Learn how different personality types respond to different aspects of the training, enabling you to adapt your methods for each employee
- Identify stagnant aspects of the training process
- Identify pieces of information that are missing from the training program
- Improves communication
- Gives you fresh ideas that you can choose to incorporate into your training program
If you already ask for feedback but feel that you're still struggling to engage employees in training, try asking for feedback after each section of your current training program.
Encouraging employee engagement in training is just one perk you'll enjoy when you include collecting feedback into your training process. You'll also create an open line of communication between yourself and your employees, which increases the odds of them coming to you when there's a problem with management/orders/scheduling/etc. This improved communication decreases overall employee turnover.
Focus on Interactive Training
You can lecture your employees until your blue in the face, the odds are pretty good that most of them will zone out and miss most of what they're supposed to be learning. The best way to prevent zoning out is to stop lecturing and convert to interactive learning. You'll find that your employees pay more attention and do a better job retaining the information when they're engaged in hands-on training. Some of the most effective interactive training methods are scenario simulations. When you combine your interactive training with virtual reality training, you not only engage the employee via hands-on training, but you also make it possible for them to go through the training module over and over again if necessary. See how Gold Star Chili is leveraging interactive training below.
Keep Training Fun
You'll find that engaging employees in training is considerably easier when they're having a good time, which is why you should look for ways to make the training as fun as possible. Whenever possible, incorporate jokes, cute stories, or interesting games into the training process.
Get Other Employees Involved
There aren't any rules stating that you're the only person who can train employees. It's okay to ask more experienced employees to help with the training of newer ones. You'll find that this not only helps improve employee engagement but also goes a long way towards getting your entire staff to work together as a cohesive unit.
Getting experienced employees involved in the process works best if they enjoy training others and are only required to take part in the training process when it's convenient.
You're going to find that engaging employees in training requires being open to new ideas and techniques. The more adaptable you are to different employee training methods, the better your employees will respond. Download our guide on driving employee enablement for more great tips on engaging your staff.
