Tip of the Week: Effectively Training Your Staff

Today’s businesses are looking to build the most efficient processes they can. In order for that to happen, the people that your business depends on will need to know what is expected of them. The only way they will be able to produce the desired results is if they are properly trained. This week, we’ll be going over a few training approaches for you to consider adopting as you look to thoroughly educate your employees.

Training methods can be extremely variable and should be divided into categories. They are:

• Instruction-based
• Active
• Experience-based
• Technological

Instruction-Based

This is the part of training that you relate formal education with. Using interactive and visual aids, instructors present concepts and disciplines in lesson format. The delivery of this form of training is efficient. You can deliver it to a big group of people at once. The problem is that the nature of this type of training may not lead to high degrees of retention.  

If the right energy level can be maintained in proportion to the size of the group, this can be an effective way to teach fundamentals.

Active Training

The active training strategy is similar to the aforementioned instruction-based training with the difference being that it depends highly on the participation of the trainees. Since it relies on the active participation of the trainee, the training syllabus may not be as defined. A few examples of active training scenarios are workshops and team-based brainstorming sessions.

Active training is beneficial because the party that is being trained gets the increased engagement they are always looking for, allowing for the lesson to be more hands-on than passive. 

Experience-Based Training

Experience-based training works, but it can also come at some cost. This strategy is the old “practice makes perfect” way of going about teaching people how to do a task. In essence a person is given free reign within the training platform to do as they would do in the act of doing business. Think of how an apprenticeship works. That is experienced-based training. 

In order for this type of training to work, the trainee will need guidance from an expert who serves as a mentor. Mentorship has often been perceived as more effective amongst existing employees who will soon be elevated to a leadership position, while on-the-job training--that is the type of training that allows a trainee to work alongside production workers--is more effective with new hires. 

Technological Training

Technology-based training is the most passive form of training. Essentially, experts use modern technology to train people in the concepts and actions that need to be fulfilled in the workplace. The key ingredient that technological training offers is the empowerment it provides to the person being trained. Your employees aren’t forced to learn at a particular pace, or during a certain time.

Technology can also be used to train your employees in a crunch. Some organizations need to get someone up to speed quickly and using technology to get a person trained up fast is a great benefit for an organization.

If you would like to talk to one of our expert consultants about getting a training platform for your business, call us today at (403) 210-2927.