How to Motivate Employees to Participate in Training

After training, employees often complain about wasting time. This negative experience often means a generally negative attitude towards training courses. If you are an employer who wants to motivate employees to attend training, it is worth considering several strategies that will increase the company’s productivity and efficiency. Read more: How to Promote Employee Motivation.

Emphasize the usefulness of learning

Tell your employees about all the short-term and long-term benefits that will be provided if they participate in the training. A course that will practically improve the employee’s skills will be better attended than a simple review session. Employees are also motivated not only by career development opportunities but also by the evaluation system. At the end of the training, it would be worth giving employees a symbolic award for successfully completing the course.

Consider incentives for long-term personal growth. People like friendly competition, so take advantage of a progress-oriented game among your colleagues. For example, every time an employee learns a new skill or receives a certificate, he earns points for his team. In any case, you can motivate employees to learn by taking a creative approach.

Make the learning process valuable

Personalize content to get employees more involved in training. It is important to adapt the topics to the needs of employees so that the materials offered are relevant, effective and all redundant information is “discarded”. Take the time to create training that employees will thank you for later. For example, if the training is about new company software, it needs to be presented in a different way to the employees of each department, depending on how they will actually use the software.

At the end of the training, employees should leave with new knowledge or strengthened relationships. One way to do this is to encourage all team members to attend training. The presence of managers allows people to learn from those in senior positions. Employees need to see training as an important part of their job, not an unnecessary task.

Make the learning process exciting

If employees have no idea what to expect or what they will gain, they will not prioritize training. Change topics often, use raffles or gifts, and add humor to examples and explanations. People usually like activities, so when creating a training program, it is worth supplementing it with a series of different tasks, instead of conducting a presentation on a specific topic. In larger companies, employees attending training may not know each other. Use these sessions to your advantage and promote peer cohesion, for example with different team tasks.

Offer flexibility

Compulsory training is often seen as an undesirable obligation. Instead of making training mandatory on a specific day, give employees a choice when they would like to attend. Let them choose the time so that they can best incorporate it into their schedule. However, even then, there are always people in the company who may be too busy. Another option is to make training available on request. Employees will be happy to use online micro-learning modules to take care of their complex schedules. When employers try to tailor training to employee preferences, people are more likely to take training seriously.

Teach training interactively

Involve employees in the learning process by making it interactive. For example, the American film studio Pixar is recognized as a leader in interactive training. Their program includes a variety of classes each week that cover the development of fine arts, improvisation skills, and other abilities. In an effort to foster collaboration in the workplace, the program focuses on company training and employee education, as well as encouraging employees to attend any classes they want. Introducing an exciting system like this will change people’s attitudes towards learning.

Take a look at the features of the Efectio micro-learning platform, which provides a convenient, interactive, and customizable learning process. Read more: Why Have Gamification in Training Programs

Sources:

[1] Information Resources Management Association (2019). Disruptive Technology: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications 1st Edition. Hershey: IGI Global