Is Your Team Ready for Training?

Let’s explore the difference between these three groups.

The Top 20%

This group comprises mainly of people who are intrinsically (self) motivated. They are creatively excited about the opportunities that their career provides and how training helps to bring out their best. They will often discuss the training in advance, show up early and sit in front of the room ready to go. They participate fully, share openly and are willing to contribute with the group, and actively implement ideas and actions from the training.

The Middle 70%

The middle 70% cheerfully co-operate with the idea of training. A little like a muscle in the human body, often the harder they are pushed the better they respond. It is important that this group is challenged in a way that they can relate to, and see a benefit specifically for themselves. The difference between this group and the top 20% is that the top 20% soak up every bit of training they can get, knowing that it will benefit them at some stage in their life, whereas the middle 70% are always wanting to have evidence to prove that there will be some benefit for them NOW, and can sometimes be skeptical to start. The key to working with this group is to have them involved openly, prior to the sessions, expressing what it is that they would like to get from the training and then do as much as possible to address their needs throughout the sessions.

The Bottom 10%

The bottom 10% are spectators. They often have strong opinions and beliefs about how the training is a waste time, and unfortunately tend to spread and infiltrate the negative attitude with many other team players. This is purely ‘fear’ based. Perhaps training will uncover aspects of their life that they wish to ignore; or it will expose them as non-team players. They turn up for training being maliciously obedient, and will sit in the room with their arms crossed and show no signs of being engaged. Unfortunately there is a percentage of this type of person in many groups. Often they will deliberately not engage and feel that this training is a complete waste of their time.

So the question is, how to deliver the training to meet the needs of everyone?

The key is to deliver staff training to the middle 70 percent. The top 20% will soak it up regardless however, ensure that they are kept engaged, offered challenges, action steps and big picture outcomes. With the middle 70%, the context on how they can relate to the material or content is absolutely vital to engaging this group. They will participate and play full out if they are engaged from the start. Unfortunately, the bottom 10% may or may not last the length of the training however, don’t let this small minority ruin it for the rest of the organisation. Instead, take this as a great opportunity to see the team members who are less than committed to their role and your company and make the decision whether or not you’d like to keep them around.

I have heard often the comment by business owners, “What happens if I provide all this training and people leave?” My response is, “What happens if you don’t provide training and people stay?”

There have been numerous research studies showing that the number one way to retain key team players is to provide employer funded development and training, both in hard technical skills as well as the soft skills such as customer service and time management that often neglected.

Providing training for your team is one of the best investments you can make in your most important resource.

For more information on staff training training, finding quality staff and improving your recruitment process,
please contact PROTRADE United today.