4 Techniques To Fuel Employee Participation

4 Techniques To Fuel Employee Participation
Summary: You can have the best designed course with the most amazing content in your industry, but if employee participation in learning what you offer is low, what do you do?

How To Fuel Employee Participation   

Here are 4 techniques to increase employee participation, or else inspire your employees to voluntarily sign up for training and benefit from their efforts:

  1. Gather feedback before and after training.
    The only way you are going to get an accurate picture of what works and what doesn't is to hear it directly from those who are involved in the training. Ask your staff what they most want to know and deliver a course in that topic. Send out surveys that allow them to respond anonymously with their opinions. Limit the questions asked and ensure they can offer their feedback and that it will only take two or three minutes of their time. It's okay if you want to guide the discussion. For example, you can make one of the questions about topics your company is thinking of developing training programs for and ask which is the most relevant to them or which one they would prefer to see first. Ask what other topics they would like to see covered.
  2. Be transparent.
    You can burst the first bubble of enthusiasm if you ignore the feedback you receive. Send regular short feedback reports thanking those who offered insight into potential training programs, talking about some of the suggestions offered, and indicating which ones you will move forward with first and why. Your credibility depends on your ability to show that when employees take the time to offer thoughtful suggestions, you listen.
  3. Move away from lengthy classroom training to more effective employee-controlled online learning modules.
    Art Kohn, writing in Learning Solutions Magazine reminds us that the average person forgets 70 percent of what they are taught within 24 hours of hearing it. However, the way you get them to retain it is to ensure that within the hours and days after training, they use that knowledge and it becomes relevant to them. The work of brain science pioneer and researcher Dr.Henry Roediger at Washington University supports the theory that if information is recalled in the days and weeks after it has been taught, the person will remember it much longer. So look at building micro-courses that cover just one aspect of a larger training module and delivering it on its own. There may be 10 aspects of training procedure you want to cover, but breaking it down into 10 lessons instead of one long lesson, the retention of your employees will be greatly enhanced because of it. Remember that even if you are starved and have your favorite pizza in front of you, you can still only satisfy your hunger by eating one slice at a time. Even when employees are eager to learn, making sure the morsel of knowledge they receive is digested before you cram more into their brain is a good strategy.
  4. Treat your employees as customers of your learning programs.
    Market your learning modules in ways that are attractive to them, and gather their feedback again after they have taken the learning product and used it. What did they really like or not like about it? How did it help them? Most importantly, how were you able to use what they had learned within a week of learning it? Gather actual examples that can be used as follow-up testimonials. Marketing is a big part of your company strategy in staying connected with your customers and getting their buy-in on your products. Don't ignore its value when it comes to promoting your learning programs to your employees in order to increase employee participation in your corporate training courses.