‘Tis the season of new beginnings, of resolutions we hope will compensate for past transgressions and inspire more constructive behavior in the future. This makes it a good time to step back and take a look at what we mean when we talk about employee training. “Elementary,” you might say with a nod of the head and wink of the eye. But do we really know what we’re talking about with our courses and workbooks, our webinars and self-paced learning modules?
The stakes are high. According to industry statistics, almost 80% of business and human resource personnel globally admit to having significant employee retention and engagement problems. And if that doesn’t alarm you, consider the four out of every ten workers worldwide who report being disengaged from what they do. If we believe what the researchers tell us, both from a morale and productivity standpoint, things look pretty grim. Let us resolve, then, to view the dollars and hours we invest in employee training as a corporate asset rather than a begrudged expense.
Too often we neglect to step back and acknowledge that our job is to help employees learn. We often forget that acquiring new knowledge or developing a new skill is a process. We get bogged down in models and templates that, although state-of-the-art, might be inappropriate or confusing to a particular audience. Too often we’re satisfied with posting content on the web or the company intranet, neglecting post-learning assessment and review of whether the content and format we chose were efficient and effective.
Too often we cast too wide a net, sidestepping that pesky axiom that when it comes to training, one size doesn’t fit all. Too often we bypass input and talent from among the rank and file that might provide valuable insight into the needs of employees we’re charged with training. Often we get our wires crossed about whether we’re teaching or training, each of which requires significant content and treatment modalities.
Let us resolve, first, in the coming year to be sensitive to the difference between training and teaching. Although the two can be used in tandem, their goals, and often their methodologies, differ. We might say that teaching seeks to impart knowledge and/or provide information. If your goal, say, is that a certain segment of employees will be brought up to date on the rationale and particulars of a company’s recently reconstituted confined space safety program, you are teaching. But if you want your workforce to become competent in the application of the technology and equipment involved—and inspired to use it—you are training. At a minimum, the former requires some kind of instruction that includes opportunities for feedback and interaction. The latter would be best accomplished by providing hands-on practice.
What, in fact, does it mean to learn? Learning runs the gamut from the acquisition of unfamiliar material to developing a new capacity or skill. These activities are typically accomplished through study, instruction, and experience, alone or in combination. To learn is to come to be able (to do something) or to come to realize something that was previously beyond our access or experience. Learning can be active, such as on-the-job training, or more passive, as in a classroom or computer-based instruction. We sometimes refer to learning as mastering new material or acquiring new knowledge and skills or more colloquially as getting it or picking it up. If our training is well designed, employees will attend to what we have to say and recognize that the acquisition of this new information or capacity is to their benefit.
Although not often acknowledged, an essential component of learning is leadership. Trainers and teachers must be out in front of their students to guide them. Trainers should be capable of encouraging employee competence. They should identify with the employees they’re charged with training, and it goes without saying that they should have good communication skills. Resolve to look for individuals who have the ability to inspire and empower. Think of a good trainer as a coach who’s capable of bringing out the best in your team.
So let’s say you’re on board with these resolutions and are ready to put boots on the ground. What might that look like? Over two decades of designing training and information programs, I have found it useful to keep in mind a modified version of a formula I used as a news reporter: What happened? To whom and/or by whom and why? This is followed by details as to when, where, and how. Checking in with this formula from time to time assures me that I’m not getting ahead of myself.
My primary modification of this modus operandi is to relocate the What (in this case, program content) to the rear of the formula, thereby side-stepping a common training error—preoccupation with content before the variables that will ensure success have been identified. Viewed through this lens, we might say that trainers themselves are engaged in the process of learning, as information gathered in each phase of this multiphase inquiry builds on what came before.
Who. Resolve to carefully and explicitly define the demographics of your audience.
This is a nitpicky exercise, but taking the time to identify and consider whom the training is aimed at will save you time and effort when it comes to designing what you’re going to present and how. You will be looking at the most obvious variables of age, sex, and ethnicity, amplified by specifics on employee background, experience, values, attitude toward the job, and work ethic. (Perhaps the particular group you’ll be working with has routinely presented challenges associated with motivation and attitude and your job is to right the ship.) Is your audience mostly seasoned employees or are they new hires? Is it a mix? This amalgam of backgrounds can be particularly tricky when you get down to designing content and delivery platforms.
How does the group fit into the company hierarchy? This is important because you want to know how the training will be supported and learning reinforced. Is your audience exclusively line employees or will you be training supervisors as well? With trench safety, for example, the best course might be to inform supervisors on the theory and background of management’s switch to new procedures, which would be more teaching than training and, as such, would require a delivery format that accommodates more detailed information. Accompanying this, you would then design a module for supervisors to utilize with the crews who do the actual work.
How many people will you be training? A delivery platform that will work for a small number of people may not upsize to larger groups. Are the information or skill(s) you will be presenting new to your audience, or is your job to train them in a revision or refinement? (Of a software, say.) In short, resolve not to be satisfied with management’s view of how the training should proceed and be prepared to do some of your own onsite reconnoitering.
There’s one other aspect of Who that is important to consider—who will do the actual training, either in the classroom, online, or whatever? Is there someone in the target audience who can function as a content expert or who perhaps has the talent to actually provide some of the training directly? Many companies have found this to be effective. And if you will be presenting information that is new or perhaps potentially controversial to some in your target audience, can you identify employees who have proven to be early adopters in the past and can be conscripted as cheerleaders? This strategy was used successfully by heavy equipment manufacturers in the rollout of machine control.
Why. What is the purpose of what you’ve been charged to do? Is management clear about the outcomes it wants to achieve? Are its goals accurate and practical given the nature of the material and your own audience research? Perhaps part of your job will be educating managers on the best approach for this group of employees, such as suggesting sequential or departmentalized modules. Resolve not to move too quickly into the specifics of Where, When, and How until you are completely clear on your purpose and have established that you and management are on the same page.
Where. If this is skill-based training, does the company have its own training facility, a training lab, perhaps? Or will your program be implemented on the job, which will likely require a platform that provides mobile access? Perhaps the venue will be an outside location—at a manufacturer’s training site or a hotel meeting room as a strategy to get employees away from the job for a while to help them concentrate. If this is to be on-the-job training, how will employees engaged in training be segregated so their activities don’t interfere with production?
When/How. Is management committed to giving employees time off for training or will they have to squeeze in their learning on their own time, at a time and a place of their choosing? Will some segment of your target audience be sent to manufacturer training with their charge to pass the learning on to other members of the workforce? If this is self-paced learning and employees are accessing the material via computer or another mobile device, what kind of facilities will management make available to them? Might managers have overestimated the extent to which employees are computer literate or comfortable accessing material via cell phone?
What. Now that you know who you’re training and why and have some idea of where, when, and how, it’s time to delve into the content. If you’ll be using manufacturer-supplied material, your job will be to determine whether it meets management’s goals and addresses employee needs. Ditto if manufacturer personnel will be doing the actual training. If you’re an in-house trainer designing a program from scratch, the research phase of the process—becoming familiar with what employees already know—is critical.
If the material requires employee feedback and interaction, the extent and focus of your program will be different, as will the platform. A self-paced program on trench safety for line employees, for example, might make considerable use of visuals both in the presentation of content and subsequent verification that your learners have mastered the material. This kind of approach, while vital to the success of your program, will prove effective to the degree that you have sought employee input on content and delivery.
There—that wasn’t so bad, was it? Just a reminder of what you already know but sometimes gets neglected for want of time and resources.
Next up: employee development programs.