5 Ways Training can Increase Employee Engagement
Dennis Kyle
December 10, 2020
Training is Important
If your organization doesn't promote training opportunities properly, your employees may look at training as a chore. Rather than making it seem like an obligation they have to fulfill as part of their job requirements, you should work with the leadership team to position training as a beneficial experience for your employees. When workers feel like you are investing in them and that you are providing them with the tools they will need to succeed in the long-term, they will be more engaged with your company.
How to Position Training as a Benefit to Your Workforce
Here are five ways that you can position training so that your workforce feels motivated to participate:
Offer Job-Specific Training
Your workforce is made up of people from a variety of backgrounds and industries. You may have a sales team, a marketing team and an engineering team, or you may have a group of communications professionals who specialize in different sectors, such as social media, crisis communications or corporate internal communications. The key to creating training programs that are inviting and engaging is offering job-specific training. You can do this by:
- Offering specific training opportunities at certain times for individual sectors of your organization. Don't make the engineers and the communications professionals sit through the same generic training.
- Implement training programs that focus on relevant skills that your employees will need immediately. Try to avoid training them on a new software platform that you plan to launch a year from now. Focus on the training that needs to be done right now.
- Creating training programs that are based on the needs and desires of your individual workers. Solicit feedback from your employees whenever possible about the types of training opportunities they are most interested in.
Provide Real-Time, Course-Specific Feedback
Employees will remain engaged and interested in their training program if they can gauge their own progress throughout the experience. You should create training opportunities that lend themselves to real-time feedback. Whether the moderator of the training session is able to guide participants throughout the course, or a virtual assistant can offer real-time tracking for employees who are working to complete a program, you should look into the feedback options that are available to you.
This feedback can help employees understand where they are succeeding and where they need to focus their efforts in the future. It is important that you offer feedback that is specific to the course that your employees are currently enrolled in, as this feedback will guide them as they work to complete the training and utilize their new skills at work each day.
Incentivize Your Workers with Relevant Rewards
People of all ages are more motivated to complete extra work if they feel that there will be a personal benefit for them. In order to motivate your employees to sign up for new training opportunities and explore different course offerings, you should create a reward system. It is important to offer relevant rewards, such as displaying employees' photos on a "Wall of Fame" in the office.
With virtual training, you could offer gamification rewards, such as badges or trophies that will be displayed next to the worker's username. Monetary awards, such as a completion bonus, also could be an option. You may want to consider a reward system that changes based on the level of training that an employee has completed, or that centers around an employee applying their newfound skills within their own position at the company. When you offer rewards to your employees for training, the benefits are twofold. Not only do your workers reap the rewards, but your organization also benefits from increased motivation and engagement amongst its employees.
Create Fun and Interactive Training Opportunities
Don't be surprised if you initially hear groans and moans when you tell your workers that they have to participate in mandatory training. Generally speaking, most workers are not interested in sitting through boring presentations that may or may not be relevant to their actual positions. However, when you create fun and interactive training opportunities, your employees will be pleasantly surprised by the experience.
Not only will they leave the training with valuable information and a new set of skills that they can use to advance their own positions with the company, but they also will have enjoyed an experience that was interactive, interesting and engaging. Positive Results has specialized in creating both in-person and virtual training opportunities that are interactive and communal. These are the types of training programs that yield long-lasting results, but employees are attentive and interested in the topic at hand, and they learn how to apply that newfound knowledge within the workplace.
Encourage Workers to Help Develop Future Training Opportunities
Whenever you offer training programs, you have a unique opportunity to engage your workforce and solicit input for future development opportunities. Here are a few ways that you can encourage your workers to help you develop your future training opportunities:
- Garner feedback after a training program has been completed. Discover what worked, and what didn't work, about that specific program.
- Ask employees to provide you with insight about the type of on-the-job training that they would like to receive. This will allow them to feel valued, and it will give you an opportunity to prove that you’re invested in your employees' futures.
By soliciting feedback, you are giving your employees a stake in the company. They will be just as interested as you are in creating a better workforce for your organization.
Final Words
Continual learning needs to be a priority at any organization that wants to succeed. The trick is creating a culture where learning and training is valued at all levels — beginning at the executive level and working its way down the ladder. When hiring, organizations need to focus on prospective employees who are motivated to learn and develop new skills that will help them further their career.
Positive Results has been working with organizations of all sizes and industries for 25 years, and we can help you create training programs for your workforce that they will actually enjoy.
If you have additional questions or need support, contact us at:
Positive Results™ Custom Business Solutions
440.499.4944
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