The best training method is the one that is received best by learners, it sticks and, most importantly, results in the desired actions.
Easier said than done!
How Do (Adult) Employees Learn
The more employees are involved in the teaching/learning process, the better they learn.
https://teaching.washington.edu/topics/engaging-students-in-learning/
There are different levels of engagement and involvement. Below is a list sorted by increasing level of involvement.
- Read – this refers to reading by yourself and is not relevant to this discussion
- Listen – to lectures delivered by an instructor
- Read and discuss – for example, business cases in a moderated session
- Teach – each student learns a topic and teaches the rest of the group
- Role-playing or simulated scenarios – where you create a situation with a problem that employees have to solve, or otherwise learn from.
- Experiential learning – or on-job training. Quite popular but not exactly the kind of training we are discussing here.
Pick one or more strategies for teaching from this list. Hopefully, it’s not just 1 and 2 in the list above. “Read and discuss” should be the minimum, and whenever resources allow, role-playing is even better. We all use on-job training on the time.
This is the best way but usually the most resource-intensive since each employee has to be trained independently. This also happens to be the riskiest, since a mistake made during the on-job training results in real loss.
How Can You Make it Stick
My favorite formula for making it stick comes from Chip and Dan Heath’s book “Made to Stick”. They convincingly argue that for the material to stick, it needs to be:
- Simple
- Unexpected
- Concrete
- Credible
- Emotional
- In a Story format
However sticky, the material is still forgotten if it is not used. As noted in a previous blog, training received has a retention rate of only 50 – 30% after one day and as little as 10% after 30 days.
To ensure, that any material you teach during training is not forgotten quickly, it needs to be repeated and instilled over time. The same blog shows how retention stays pretty close to 100% when the messaging is repeated over time.
Spaced Repetition
After it ends in a day or two, it’s not possible to repeat it all over again just so it’s remembered better. The format of dumping a lot of information on employees in a single go is inherently faulty. Shorter sessions stretched over a longer spaced period are most effective.
For example, rather than having a two-day long session on consecutive days, split the same 16hr material over two-hour long sessions spread over eight days. Or even better spread them over eight weeks with two hours of material delivered the same day of the week over those two months. In each session, repeat the material from the previous session(s) and build on it.
This will ensure the material is not forgotten. Spaced repetition also allows the employees-in-training to reflect on what they’ve learned and bring back any questions they may have, or will share any insights with the group. This further enhances the learning by engaging the ‘teaching’ style of learning as noted above.
Applying the Learning to Achieve Results
Spaced learning, reflection, and sharing of experience and insights automatically result in the application of the training material towards achieving results. A well-designed training builds on it. Each spaced session reviews and refreshes the previous learning applies it and builds further on it.
This discussion acts both as a review and a check on whether the learning is being used in actual work. Group discussion with even a few employees who are using the new learning sets examples for those who haven’t by then and inspires them. Trainers and/or facilitators can also put appropriate pressure on the rest to ensure they also start using what they’ve learned.
Spaced repetition is the best way to teach employees and give the best chance to trainers, and through them to managers, to ensure new material is put to use quickly and effectively. That is the best way to achieve the results you want to achieve from a training session.
Check out our training sessions, all of which are designed to use spaced repetition. They produce quantifiable improvements and clearly show the ROI you get from your investment in training.
