5 Ways to Make Corporate Trainings Count
In many organisations, corporate trainings are associated with leave from routine chores, classroom-type antics between participants, free tea and sandwiches and a shiny memento to place on the work station. As a result the imparted learning is rarely seen making a difference in the work environment.
Corporate trainings have an obvious infrastructural and financial bearing on organisations. Instead of arranging trainings that just incur losses, here are some steps that can make your employees actually look forward to corporate trainings as means of improvement, rather than a free day away from work.
Offer an experience, not just learning
This is one of the key principles that make or break a training exercise. Remember the last meeting with your friends? Did you notice that you clearly remember how much you enjoyed the outing, but only a little of what actually was discussed? That’s the key to trainings as well. A training that offers experiences beyond routine and memorable moments will leave a lasting effect on employees and the learning outcomes are likely to stick for longer.
While selecting training programs for your employees, you should keep in mind that corporate trainings have a limited timeframe and the key to conducting a successful training is the exercise’s ability to evoke the most basic of human emotions like glee, gloom and fear, natural stimulants for the building of recallable memories. In short, it is fundamental to select trainers who have the ability to provide a unique experience, involve participants, throw in some humour and make the participants enjoy the process.
Identify practicable takeaways
Most corporate trainings would tell attendants what they would learn by the end of the course, but many fail at explaining the ways a participant could implement the learning in his or her work processes. This is one of the key reasons of loss of employee interest in training programs and expected improvement is rarely seen at the work place.
To achieve the desired results, ensure that this extremely vital attribute should be integrated in your selected corporate training. Defining the ways in which an employee can improve him/herself will not only make the scope of the training clearer, but it will also act as a stimulant for attendees to pay greater attention to the knowledge being imparted.
Make participants relate
It is one thing to keep talking about the latest research/theories and figures in the field of Human Resource Management and see the participants yawning and doodling on paper, and another to see eager faces awaiting the next phase of the training. A training that utilises real life stories and relatable experiences is more likely to promote learning and inspire action in attendees.
Seasoned trainers also include quotes, video footages of people who benefited or propelled their careers through learning imparted by the corporate training underway.Through close coordination and planning with trainers, you have to ensure that employees must relate to training material/methodologies in order to consider it real and implementable in actual work environment.
Make trainings interactive and comprehensible
Nothing takes a student’s mind away from the classroom more than a monotonous lecture that’s difficult to understand. The teachers who truly left a mark on our lives are the ones who involved us in the learning process, broke difficult things down for us for easy consumption and spoke to us at our own level.
For corporate training to be successful, you must select a trainer who must keep these things in mind. The trainer must break down learning into easily understood steps. Making the learning interactive, asking attendants for opinion on negotiating a hypothetical hardship, having them explain the learning to peers in attendance and physical exercises are all part of a wide variety of options that a trainer must utilise to keep the attendants engaged.
Attach value to training
There is a clear difference in the way you use your everyday t-shirt and the suit your wife or parents gave you on your birthday, right? Why? Because that object has more value to you. The same holds true for corporate trainings or any other occurrence in your life. Anything that is considered valuable will receive much more attention from targeted audience. Before actually arranging them, you should create value for the training; show employees how those chosen to attend are the entitled ones, how it would benefit their careers, set them apart from the rest. Spread the word on the company’s social media accounts, make the activity known and talked about. It would not only bring out the true value of the training, it would make the training participants feel more humbled to be its part and pay greater focus on achieving the desired learning objectives.
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