Get Your In-House Training Programmes Bursting at the Seams!
Haunted by negative past experiences, customers often ask what they can do to ensure full attendance to their schedule of in-house training programmes so with the help of one of our customers, Claire Bonnet, Equality & Diversity Officer at Midland Heart, we have complied our top 4 tips:
Top Tip #1: Harness the Power of Word of Mouth
As far as we are concerned, it is part of our job as specialists in delivering bespoke training, to ensure that the solutions we design are relevant, engaging and memorable. Not only is this crucial to ensuring ROI / ROE, but if every delegate who leaves the training room is buzzing about their day of learning then word of mouth can be your main ally in gaining intrigue and buy-in from the rest of the organisation.
If training content is generic and case studies relate to a different department to the group in the room, or even a different sector (yes that happens a lot!) then you are more likely to get the ‘So what’ face than enthusiasm. If it’s lecture based, PowerPoint heavy or delivered by a Borainer (a boring trainer) then your delegates are likely to go back to the office and forewarn colleagues NOT to book on. And, if no one really understands how to implement the learning once they get back to the day-job then they will only remember the training day as a temporary hindrance, not a long-term help, to their To-Do list.
Now I appreciate that some training subjects are more popular than others. It will always be easier to get staff excited about a How to Wow Customer Service workshop than Getting the Most from you Operations Manual programme but there are still tactics you can employ.
As Sir Francis Bacon famously said: “Knowledge is power”. So in the interests of knowledge sharing I asked Claire Bonnet, Equality & Diversity Officer from one of the UK’s largest housing associations, Midland Heart, to share her top tips to increasing staff attendance to in-house training programmes. This is what she said:
Top Tip #2: Promote the Benefits
“Promote the training and outline how attendance will benefit the employees (include quotes from employees, statistics to show how confidence has improved and launch an internal campaign to promote training) For example, we have designed a series of colourful posters to be put up across the organisation as reminders” (See above.)
Top Tip #3: Buy-In from the Top
“Manager buy in is crucial to ensure staff attend, you can tag the word ‘mandatory’ onto training but this will not ensure attendance. So, send emails, pick up the phone and talk to managers about their team dynamics and challenges they face to ensure staff attend and work with managers to ensure attendance. Often, managers may feel that no-one understands the demands of their team but if you show you understand and are keen to work with them you’re more likely to get higher engagement from employees.”
Top Tip #4: Work in Partnership
“Work alongside your training provider to ensure attendance and ask them to give you feedback on locations where attendance is high and low. This enables you to put training on in locations that suits employees.”