The first time I realised that the way I thought about training was very different to many business owners came in a conversation I had with a neighbour some years ago. I told Mick, the owner of a large maintenance business that I’d spent the morning running a seminar. ‘Feeding the chooks you mean,’ he said. Seeing my confused expression he clarified, ‘You know, training. Useless exercise. Never makes much difference. Big waste of money but as employers we must be seen to be going through the motions to keep our people happy.’
I’ve witnessed first-hand training programmes create extraordinary results – businesses doubling their profit, a bike chain increasing sales by 20% in one week, the worst performing offices in a region becoming the best – so I know that quality training can be instrumental in developing people and achieving corporate goals. Yet Mick’s opinion of corporate training is shared by many, and I have come to accept that his scepticism is often entirely justified.
After reviewing hundreds of local, national and global courses as part of consulting projects, there are some excellent providers out there, but they are swamped by the sheer mass of firms peddling mediocrity. High profile universities whose ‘world class’ product consists of monotonous two-hour videos of a lecturer talking into a camera; online companies whose sub-standard modules are more e-Information, than eLearning; external ‘experts’ who have bought into a coaching/training franchise that gives them support tools and formats but can’t substitute for their lack of real business success.
These kinds of defective offerings have distorted the discussion around training and convinced a generation of CEO’s that it’s futile to expend much energy in this area. One frustrated head said to me, ‘We’ve spent five million dollars on training over the last 5 years and we’ve got f**k-all to show for it!’
It is a common complaint, but one we need to fix fast as training is now a key worker requirement. 59% of Millennials say learning and growing are extremely important when applying for a role. 94% say that they will stay in their job if they are given upskilling opportunities. It is not all about the employee though. With the labour market shrinking employers are more dependent on internal applicants to fill roles, making effective skills development vital to business success. Research also shows that companies who offer good training are 17% more productive and 24% more profitable than those that don’t, so the up-side is huge.
So how do you do it? Start with baby steps:
STEP 1: WHERE DO YOU NEED TO FOCUS?
Organisations often feel overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of what they are trying to improve and the associated potential training offerings. They don’t know where to begin, so they often never do. As HR leader of a large retailer, I once asked the store managers what they would like included in our training process. After collating their responses, I had enough information to keep a person busy for about two years.
Start by thinking: what are the core outcomes that are vital to your business success? You are not trying to be the best at everything so what is the minimal training people need to be effective at their job?
Then identify which ones require a specific training course and which can be taught effectively on-the-job, with supplementary systems. Research shows employees retain only a small portion of what managers tell them to do (some estimate this is as low as 20%), so it’s often more practical to create some enduring, helpful reference systems.
Here are some examples – if you just create one a week you will have a vast library by the end of the year:
- One page ‘how to’ systems or checklists for common, repeated tasks.
- Bite-sized instructional videos (under a minute) recorded by your experts and posted on a company intranet or YouTube channel.
- Quick guides for each software process e.g. how to input payroll data. You can use online tools such as Scribe that document each keystroke, and instantly build visual guides with text, links, and screenshots of each step. (Note I am not plugging Scribe here – it is just one of many online options).
- Role-based WhatsApp groups where people can post and get answers to simple queries.
Systems are especially useful in areas where you are experiencing repeated mistakes. A farmer on one of my masterclasses told me that after the session she created a host of ‘how to’ tools and linked them to smartphone QR codes that she put on posters around her farm. Once employees could access constant reminders as to how to do things well, she cut errors by nearly 90%.
Once you’ve eliminated all the areas you can improve via effective systems, you can then dedicate the time saved to creating training programs for your essential core needs.
e.g. In my first business I introduced:
- A half day induction course for new people – to inspire as well as educate, to make a great first impression.
- A half day for new managers to teach them how to have monthly chats with their people, manage performance effectively and avoid common pitfalls.
- A monthly 1-hour sales session to grow expertise in the business’s core competency, run by sales high achievers.
As the organisation grew and accumulated more resources these sessions naturally became more comprehensive, growing into 3-day courses and a full-blown sales academy. Note I started with three because I found a few inspirational, practical sessions have far greater impact than hundreds of mediocre ones.
STEP 2 – DESIGN EFFECTIVE COMPONENTS:
Once you’ve identified the essential training systems you need to create consider:
- What inclusions do I need? Consider activities, inspiration, relevance.
- Who can design/deliver the training content/systems and process? In-house/external advisers with objective practical achievement in this area?
- How will it be delivered? Online/face-to-face?
- How often? Is it a one-off or a regular requirement?
In my consulting I see time and again juniors with limited expertise in the subject area, create training modules for the company’s employees. This is sheer madness. With little or no input from relevant business leaders or experts in the role, the programmes developed are generally useless to frontline staff and are often ignored. The management’s response? They make the ineffectual course compulsory and put in a system of policing to make sure everyone does it.
This is what I call ‘training for training’s sake’ – work undertaken to justify people’s employment, rather than any initiatives that make a real difference. It’s letting the tail wag the dog. Effective training requires project management, coordinating experts and achievers both internally and externally, to produce or provide modules with real business outcomes. It also needs to consider who is the key stakeholder/end user and the ultimate litmus test: ‘Are they prepared to pay for it?’
Like the development of a new tech product, the best results occur when the organisation’s business leaders take ownership of cost and outcomes.
STEP 3: EXPLAIN THE WHY TO PARTICIPANTS:
People need to understand the purpose of training. After years of running masterclasses, it is always apparent when someone has been ordered to attend, rather than choosing to come along because of a real need, and this is reflected in their engagement levels.
Make sure that attendees understand how this learning will benefit them, from being more productive/reducing errors, to career enhancement, or simply to increase expertise in their field. (This is also why self-directed learning has the best outcomes).
STEP 4: REINFORCEMENT & MEASUREMENT
Call me old-fashioned but if I pay good money to take my people out of the business and send them on a sales course, I want to know that they will sell more afterwards. The transference of real skills from the classroom to the workplace is what every business leader craves, as opposed to the ‘sheep-dip’ training of the past.
Yet few measure or reinforce training outcomes. Here are some examples of effective measurement:
- A participant evaluation score.
- An increase in performance.
- Improved staff satisfaction ratings.
- Increased training take-up of future sessions.
Training without reinforcement is like teaching a toddler to wash their hands after going to the toilet and then checking with them 6 months later to see if they are still doing it. It is not very effective!
If you build a culture of continuous improvement there are so many ways you can do this, from 1-on-1 monthly leader chats, project teams focused on each aspect you’re trying to entrench, Town Hall catchups that reward high achievers in the skill, in-house experts running a monthly Q and A class, participants downloading info to their team members post-training, and so on.
Finally remember that upskilling is not just about systems and training modules. I learnt more about sales sitting beside my company’s number 1 salesperson for four hours, than from participating in any module. Other high-impact training activities that leaders can use to upskill can include:
- Interesting articles/blogs
- YouTube clips
- Ted Talks
- Collaborative activities across work teams.
- Fun quizzes
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In a world of constant change, the spoils go to the nimble. Instead of being good at doing some particular thing, companies must now be really good at learning how to do new things. And with most trainers incentivised to drag programmes out as they get paid more for longer sessions, it’s getting harder all the time. So remember, it is not about feeding the chooks, it’s about the pecking order, and only those businesses that shift their thinking around upskilling from a quantity mindset to a high-impact mindset will come out on top.
To fast-track training success, download my free online course for new trainers – The 7 Steps To Effective Training which shares what makes a training session great beyond its actual content, and how to deliver it seamlessly to avoid the usual pitfalls. Click here