A Guide to Choosing a Teaching Medium for Your Employees

A Guide to Choosing a Teaching Medium for Your Employees Employee training is ac crucial aspect in human resource development. When you have a properly trained pool of staff, business operations flow smoothly, production costs are kept at manageable levels, people perform up to par, and the organization has better chances of achieving its target. Indeed, business prospects are very ideal as you reach this juncture.However, staff training and development can be very challenging because it’s a multifarious process. For one, you probably have different sets of goals for every department or employee, and picking the most appropriate business training method requires a lot of assessment.Some of the things you need to consider here include:Target skills or behavior to developLevel of training for new employees vs. more experienced employeesevalThe planning stage, which involves designing of training activities and putting resources together, among others, is all the more tedious and time consuming. These are just bits and pieces of all the det ails that go into organizing trainings and seminars for employees.This article gives you a rundown of training essentials that you can incorporate in your human resource development programs. It lists various techniques to choose from for your upcoming business workshops, along with relevant examples and corresponding benefits and setbacks.You may also find this guide particularly helpful, as it offers pointers on how you could combine several methods to develop a unified approach or solution for your training goals.Last but not least, this post features insights from fellow HR practitioners and experts for some bit of inspiration to best help your employees learn and grow with your organization.Training FormatsevalAssuming you have already determined the content or focus of your training, the next decision to make is which delivery mode should you choose. You have several options, and these are:1. Classroom-Based or Instructor-Led TrainingThis is the traditional approach to teachin g. Although it’s only half as popular now as it used to be, it remains to be a suitable option for a host of scenarios including business seminars, for example.In-classroom instruction is advantageous for business training for several reasons:It makes the presentation of course materials equally effective for small and large audiences so that everybody gets the same information simultaneously.There is instant feedback from employees attending the event. They are free to ask questions, seek clarifications, or provide additional input about what’s being discussed or studied.It’s very cost-effective, especially when conducted in-house by company managers and officers who won’t charge you extra for training or honorarium fees.evalApplying the classroom-setting type of seminars and trainings for business is relatively easy too, as you only need to provide the bare essentials such as blackboard/whiteboard, overhead projector, video or PowerPoint presentations, test questions, spre adsheets, and slideshows.On the downside, this method of instruction presents some challenges especially when you’re looking to get higher levels of engagement from attendees. This is particularly difficult when there is no rapport between the lecturer and the trainees.Ideally, trainers should know how to break communication barriers and use interactive methods to help employees on training feel enthusiastic, interested, and attentive.evalAs leadership consultant and book author, Jim Krunick, said, “Learning is about engagement. Talent + Engagement = Strength.”2. Hands-On TrainingA practical, hands-on approach is highly applicable when you are training new hires, helping employees make a transition, or introducing new systems, tools, or processes. There are several ways to conduct this type of training, including:Mentoring or Coaching â€" The main goal here is to impart knowledge that employees can use to fulfill their roles and responsibilities in the workplace. You may tap a team leader, supervisor, or seasoned employee to act as a mentor to a younger staff.The mentor can take advantage of coaching sessions to observe how the trainee performs a task, correct errors, give pointers and encouragement, and provide feedback constructively.Demos â€" This method is used to teach employees new procedures or how to use new technologies equipment or software crucial to everyday operations.Product demonstrations also provide the perfect opportunity for customer service representatives to have a closer look at the company’s new offerings and have them try out those items so that they can explain to customers how to use them, as well as be better prepared to answer possible queries from clients.Peer-to-Peer Training â€" Similar to the buddy system, this involves an employee training a co-employee such as when a junior employee shadows a senior employee to learn the various aspects of a job.Alternatively, a team leader designates one of the members to conduct trai ning sessions for underperforming employeesâ€"suggesting more effective strategies in areas where they need improvement.The only limitation in this kind of training is its incompatibility with large groups of trainees especially if you want to focus your attention on employees who are really struggling or need the most help, as well as decreased productivity from the trainers, who may have to spend considerable amount of time away from their own work assignments.3. Computer-Based Training At best, CBT, TBL, or e-learning methods may be met with resistance, as employees feel a certain amount of fear, intimidation, or uneasiness in using technology as tools. Just as technology should be user-friendly, it’s also a must for you to ensure that your training methods are designed with clear-cut instructions and easy-to-follow procedures so that trainees feel motivated to participate in the learning process.4. Social Media TrainingThe boom in the use of social sites is paving way for comp anies to integrate social media training in their employee training curriculum. Because social has, by large, a creative and collaborative nature to it, companies find it to be an attractive training component for sales, marketing, human resources management, and just about every aspect of the business. Generally speaking, your company’s branding, reputation, and popularity may become highly dependent on how your employees use social media responsibly to promote your organization, or at the very least, how they represent themselves online, as this says a lot about your corporate culture as well.Having a social media team in your organization is also a good PR tool slash spin doctor in case things go awry. That said, your social media training should cover two aspects:Literacy and Policy Training â€" Since it’s becoming harder and harder for employees to separate their personal life from their social media profile, you might as well equip them with training on how to uphold your organization’s social media policies.Educate your employees about what they can and cannot share on social such as trade secrets, upcoming products, and privacy and security settings.evalAs Gloria Burke, Unisys’ director of Knowledge and Collaboration, said in a Forbes interview, “When you give them that training, you’re empowering them to be more confident and effective in what they’re sharing.”Social Media Response Team â€" Whether it’s a corporate event needing media mileage or a potentially damaging issue that you’re anticipating, you could use your social media response team to handle such affairs in the best way possible.The Value of a Unified Training ApproachThere is no single formula for success just as many business leaders claim. Therefore, combining different methodologies to form a blended or unified approach for employee training holds great promise, especially since your organization has a diverse set of needs, goals, and resources.A study made at the University of Tennessee revealed that blended learning cuts in half the time and cost of training people. In the same study, it was found that blending learning improved performance by 10 percent as compared with traditional training.Here are a couple of practical tips you can explore as you try to implement a blended learning approach in your employee training curriculum:Break down a complex subject matter in a classroom-based instruction where the first part would be in the form of a lecture. Afterward, you could divide the participants into mentoring or peer-to-peer groups for the remainder of the class or training.Conduct a webinar or a video-conferencing session to teach employees how to use social media features as a business tool. Highlight key ideas and collate them in a PowerPoint presentation to be distributed to employees via email or through company intranet.Suffice to say, the possibilities are endless when it comes to training opportunities that can be afforded to empl oyees. Careful planning, proper implementation, and an honest assessment of results are key to a successful training and development program for your organization’s most valuable assets, which are your employees, no less.