s. OnEvery employee dreads the classic staff training day – and so do employers. You know your staff aren’t going to be excited about a day of training, yet it has to be done, so you all collectively bite the bullet and get ready for a day of boredom. Training days are often compulsory due to the industry you’re in, or necessary to help educate your team on new ideas, technologies, etc.
That being said, the days themselves don’t need to be boring. You’re approaching a training day too much like a school lesson or university lecture. Step outside of these dull confines and adopt a new approach to make it more exciting.
Gamify The Training Days
Instead of lumping everyone together and reading information from a PowerPoint, train your employees through gamification. Make it a competition while also teaching them new things.
You can have so much fun with this by creating custom flash cards from StressFreePrint, using them as a quiz for your employees to partake in. They learn the new information, then split into teams and see who can run through the cards the quickest while getting all the answers correct.
Depending on the purpose of your training day, you can conjure up other ways to gamify the situation. Perhaps it’s more of a health & safety training experience, in which case, see who can attach a blood pressure monitor the fastest, and so on.
Take Lots Of Breaks
Micro-learning is far better than forcing your team to sit and stare at something for multiple hours. That’s usually why people hate staff training days; they spend most of their time doing nothing and counting down the hours until lunch.
Switch things up and focus on short bursts of education, followed by quick breaks. No session should last longer than 30 minutes before you have a moment to rest. Build in time to stretch your legs, grab a coffee, and network. Studies back up the legitimacy of this. One study shows how taking short breaks can help people remember the new skills they’ve learned.
Go Somewhere Interesting
The other reason people dislike staff training is that they still have to go to the office. Switch things up and host your training days in a more interesting location. On a nice day, see if you can go outside. If not, book a space at a different location. If you’re out of the office for a day, it’ll feel less like work and more like a fun team experience.
People can wear what they want instead of being in strict work attire. It’s far more exciting than sitting around your conference room table with a projector.
At the end of the day, you must understand that employee training and development empowers your workforce and improve your company. That being said, nobody feels empowered or eager to learn when the training days are dull. Make some conscious changes so people actually look forward to staff training days and see them as beneficial and exciting.