Quick hacks to stop your employee training from being repetitive and soul crushing
We all know the importance of employee training. Most days we send out different learning modules. We make sure employees are constantly kept in the know about what our business has to say. But what happens when you take training to the limit leaving no room for inspiration, thinking or creativity?
Are we relying so much on training and regurgitating information that we forget about inspiration and innovation? As Frank Sonnenberg once said, “learning is less about memorising facts and more about the ability to think.” This important to remember when structuring your employee training.
How can you prevent lazy learning?
By this we mean, simply learning facts without actually thinking or having our own input or opinions. This is commonplace in workplaces where employees have so much to learn but with little time to think or chat.
Ask daily questions to get their brains thinking
Even if your staff work on a busy factory floor, are rushing around a car showroom or are constantly flitting between patients. Have a space where you ask a daily question and employees can write their thoughts or opinions on them. This could be a quote, a question or a statement. For example, if you work in retail you might write “No matter how good your feedback is, you always start over with the next customer. Thoughts on this?” Write it on a whiteboard, say it in your morning catch-ups, display it on your employee app with the feedback option turned on so employees can reply.
Supplement elearning with group chats
Don’t just ram a load of microlearning down your employee’s throats. Our gamification solution called Albert has a buzz feature. This buzz feature turns each player’s mobile device into a red buzzer. The manager turns into the question master and their device shows random questions. The players can then buzz in when they know the right answer. This promotes chats around knowledge gaps and allows managers to ask employees what they think about the topic at hand. They can ask if there is anything else they need to know, or if they just have general questions.
Give your employees a chance to think in their performance reviews
When you give your performance review feedback, it’s a great time to train your employees in an inspiring and creative way. You can use their actions to guide their thinking and inspire them. To do this you can tell them about what points you would like to discuss before the meeting. This gives them a chance to really think about what they would like to add to the conversation. You can ask things such as:
If you were a world-class leader how would you have handled the issue?
If rules and restrictions weren’t an issue how would you have overcome the problem?
What would Bill Gates (or any other inspiring person) have said about your actions?
Would your future or past self be happy with your actions?
What do you wish you knew then that would have helped you perform better?
What is stopping you from being the person you want to be at work?
Use inspirational quotes in your microlearning content
Nothing motivates us more than a good meaningful quote. When slotted into the right place in your employee training it can really help your message resonate with your staff and make them think beyond the text that they are presented with. For example, if you are publishing your risk management training. You could include a quote such as: “A mistake you see but do nothing to fix becomes your problem too.”
Or perhaps you are publishing training around inclusion in your business. You could include a quote such as “Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance.” Can you see how these make you think more rather than just regurgitating facts?
You don’t need to always fill the silence
Silence can motivate staff to answer questions. Especially if the silence is long and uncomfortable it always pushes employees to answer. If you are creating elearning try to create open answer questions. This is the online version of silence, forcing people to think about something to write. Having too many choice questions can stunt thinking and creativity. Remember the importance of silence in your meetings, employee training and one to ones.
If you have any suggestions on how to make your training more inspiring please let us know. You can contact us on any of our social media pages. Don’t forget to follow us too
