Focus on Your Training Misses To Win Over the Masses

Kylie Quetell Business Development, Change Management, Culture, Employee Coaching, Employee Communications, Employee Development, Employee Engagement, Games, Organizational Development, Training and Development

Meeting the needs of your employees’ development can seem like a daunting task. So is cleaning your entire house; now imagine skipping the bathrooms every week. As I look back at my career as a training leader, this perspective is one that I wish I had learned early on. One must only master an excel pivot table to find easy success.

As talent professionals, we must meet the needs of multiple parties – all of which have their own opinion.

What I have found is that you could spend thousands of hours training your employees, but if you miss one person, they will conclude that the training in the organization sucks.

To alleviate this issue, I recommend changing your perspective on how you deliver your training. In addition to spending your time creating a list of everyone you trained, make a list of everyone you didn’t. Next, find ways to pivot that information to see your trends.

Most of us can run a report that shows everyone who received training, and what they were trained on. Pro tip: Beef those lists up by including every person in the organization. This will you allow you to filter the names of the employees that were not trained – you can easily filter the data by entering a zero in the cells. Next, you can really step up your delivery by adding more data.

  • For example, include the type of training that was received. Why? Some individuals do not believe that they were trained unless a human stood in front of them and delivered material. I swear some people think that training documents just write themselves. Add a column that shows delivery type, such as instructor-led (ILT), computer-based (CBT), email, team huddle, handout, game, and so on. By doing this, you will be able to see that you only sent one handout to Mary Smith all year. What does this tell you? You may need to give Mary some in-person love before the year is over.
  • Add the job title and location. Perhaps the Vice Presidents haven’t received any training in 18 months. You may need to consider what that audience needs. Or maybe your sales team in Texas is lacking development. Again, think of the best ways to appease and develop each professional group.
  • Include the entire chain of leadership. You may have Managers, Directors, Vice Presidents, Senior Vice Presidents, etc. who have missed out on training. Being able to filter these audiences and their reporting structure will allow you to ensure all of your clients and stakeholders are feeling the learning love. It will also enable you to find a common learning need for that entire audience that will allow you to engage the whole group in one big training swoop.

Everyone once in a while, throw in some feel-good training. It doesn’t have to be anything serious or heavy in process. Instead, mix in a crucial soft skill like effective communication, or even a life skill like personal finance. Doing this not only shows that you care about your learners’ well-being, but it also hits your folks in the emotional heartstrings.

Let’s face it, while your business leaders are evaluating you based on your training investment factor, employees are evaluating you on how you made them feel. By analyzing the data to identify specific training needs, you’ll be able to make both parties happy.