Staff Training Made Easy

Nov 10 / Sally Acton


Training staff isn’t always as straight forward as it should be. Reluctant employees, time away from work, effectiveness… these are all issues that cause HR managers to seek the help of training specialists.

When Massmart approached our business partner, Clear Fusion, with a brief to streamline their staff training, we put our heads together to come up with a pain-free, effective and sustainable training solution.

Five steps to effective staff training.

Torque & Clearfusion have established an effective solution for training staff:


Drive

It doesn’t help to create a fantastic training programme with all the bells and whistles if no one knows about it. We used a combination of email and SMS to tell Massmart employees about the new training programme and drive registrations. An automated follow-up communication was sent to employees who didn’t register for the training.


Edutain

It’s one thing to get people to take part in a training programme, but it’s something else entirely for them to learn or retain any information. In order to this, a series of assessment questions, testing their knowledge, were asked. If a behaviour change is required following the training, then a performance assessment can also be used to see if the knowledge has translated into action.


Engage

If training isn’t being attended voluntarily you may encounter some resistance from employees. It’s critical to keep participants engaged throughout the process to encourage information retention and continued learning. We used a combination of text, video clips and animation to provide Massmart staff with an entertaining, diverse training experience.


Manage

Tracking where each employee is in the programme is essential. It’s important to ensure that participants are interacting with the programme as much as it requires, as opposed to them clicking through merely to reach the end. Our solution automatically manages the process and only unlocks subsequent modules for participants once they’ve completed the current module satisfactorily. Line managers can also be notified if staff are unable to move past a particular module, or if they’re not performing.

Incentivise

Competition, positively managed, is a great way to motivate employees. Reward your employees for their achievements, both in the training they do and when it’s applied back in the workplace. To encourage a healthy, competitive environment, points can be allocated for completed modules. Staff rankings can be displayed on a leader board, encouraging employees to work harder and get better results. The rankings can be team or individually based.

If you’ve identified a skills gap in your workforce it may be time to bring in the professionals to assist with training. But gone are the days of filling classrooms for days on end – a smart solution, effectively applied, can help you ensure knowledge is obtained and performance is changed.