In discussing this piece, I will tackle it from both ends of the coin—that is, both as a trainee and as a trainer. This will make its content relevant for all classes of people and more so, it will become evergreen for readers. Bersin & Associates reports in 2008 that companies around the world spend up to $100 billion a year to train employees in the skills they need to improve corporate performance—topics like communication, sales techniques, performance management, or lean operations. But training typically doesn’t have much impact. Indeed, only one-quarter of the respondents to a recent McKinsey survey said their training programs measurably improved business performance, and most companies don’t even bother to track the returns they get on their investments in training. They keep at it because a highly skilled workforce is clearly more productive and because employees often need new skills to deal with changes in an organization’s strategy or performance (De Smet, 2010).
There are several major steps in training session preparation. These areas include the importance of promoting the program to top management, preparing training materials, the training space, trainers, and trainees. The most successful training sessions are well-planned and well-prepared (Simplify Compliance, 2018).
One of the fundamental means through which you can prepare for a training session is to help people with the zeal to learn. Adults learn in predictable steps. Before employees can master a new skill effectively, for example, they must be convinced it will help improve their organization’s performance, recognize that their own performance is weak in that area, and then actually choose to learn. Yet most corporate training programs overlook these prerequisites and just assume that employees “get it.” This approach is a big mistake because it allows normal patterns of skepticism to become barriers to learning. The results are familiar to anyone who has attended a corporate training event. Instead of approaching training as active learners, many employees behave as if they were prisoners (“I’m here because I have to be”), vacationers (“I don’t mind being here—it’s a nice break from doing real work”), or professors (“Everybody else is here to learn; I can just share my wisdom”).
To avert these outcomes, companies must help employees to internalize the need for change and to develop the desire to gain the skills that will bring progress. The best method is to include trainees or their peers in determining what changes need to be made and why, thereby creating credible ambassadors for the effort. If this isn’t possible, a similar purpose is served by beginning a training program with an analysis of the existing performance problems of the individuals or business units involved and of how the new skills will address these problems (De Smet, et al., 2010).
Read through the materials. Prior to delivering a training session, read the materials thoroughly. That includes the Participant’s Manual, the PowerPoint presentation, and the Leader’s Guide. Reading everything will give you familiarity and comfort with the material (Stevenson, 2017).
Ensure you have enough materials. The training manual must be sufficient for all the trainees. Also, trainees should endeavor to ensure that they have all the essential manuals that will bolster their quest for knowledge. When there are no enough materials, hardly can knowledge exchange be possible or easy.
Promote training to management: Lack of upper-management support and commitment is one of the top five reasons why training is not as effective as it’s expected to be. Without top-level support, employees have less incentive to retain information and apply it to their work. When top management shows interest in the learning process, participants are more likely to apply new skills and knowledge to their work. Upper management’s influence on how employees react to training cannot be overestimated. Here are several ways to get your company’s top officers behind your training (Simplify Compliance, 2018).
Organize training space and arrange it accordingly. For many companies, space is at a premium and may not be readily available. Be sure that whatever space you want to use is available. If you need to arrange for tables and chairs or other equipment to be brought in, do so. Set up the room so that everyone can see the instructor and the presentation without having to turn or strain. Be sure you also consider emergency exits. Don’t use a room that does not meet safety standards (Stevenson, 2017).
Fish out harmful intents. Even when employees do learn what they’re taught, they very often don’t apply it. If this happens, the training will be wasted—no matter how good it is. Preexisting mind-sets are one frequent cause of this problem. Companies should therefore ferret out problematic mind-sets with the same rigor they put into diagnosing skill gaps.
For instance, a big-box retailer had been trying to increase its focus on customers for more than two years. It invested millions of dollars in teaching a five-step selling process, monitoring customer feedback, and rolling out e-learning programs to improve its employees’ knowledge of the products it sold. Salespeople passed every certification test they were given yet still didn’t use the new skills on the floor. Customer feedback and store performance remained lackluster.
To figure out why, the company conducted a mix of employee interviews, focus groups, and surveys. Two troubling mind-sets emerged. First, salespeople fundamentally believed that the behavior of shoppers had shifted, so that they now primarily browsed in stores and made most purchases online. Thus, employees associated attending to shoppers with a low payoff. Second, salespeople clung to age, gender, and racial stereotypes about which customers would make purchases—and tended to ignore the others. An examination of shopper survey, purchase, and conversion data proved both mind-sets false.
The company re-launched its training efforts, now grounded in an open discussion of these two mind-sets, using facts to dispel the myths and to build new enthusiasm for customer service. Salespeople began to apply the methods they’d already learned, which quickly drove a 150-basis-point improvement in conversion rates at the pilot stores and a 20 percent improvement in their net income (De Smet et al., 2010).
References
De Smet, A et al (2010). Getting More From Your Training Programs. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/getting-more-from-your-training-programs
Simplify Compliance (2018). How To Prepare For Training. Retrieved from http://trainingtoday.blr.com/article/how-to-prepare-for-training/
Stevenson, G (2017). 10 Tips For Preparing For Your Next Training Session. Retrieved from https://osg.ca/10-tips-for-preparing-for-your-next-training-session/
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(C) 2021, Alan Elangovan, All Copy Rights Reserved.