Having highly skilled and well trained members of staff at your company is one of the most important things you can do as an employer to help guarantee the success of your business. This is true no matter the specific size or type of company you are running, from the tiniest SMEs to the largest international enterprise. Of course, the specifics of what a well trained and highly skilled team looks like will be different for every business, but regardless of the differences there are some things that are universal.
For example, any business of any type or size will find that their employees are happier and more productive when they are given additional training and support. It is a relatively simple step that can be taken to encourage staff members to feel empowered and valued within their roles and it shows that you as an employer are willing to invest in their professional and personal development. A member of staff that has benefited from additional training is more likely to stay with the company for a longer period of time, meaning that the return on investment will be high.
Unfortunately, many members of staff will groan and roll their eyes at the mere mention of corporate training, and there is a good reason for this. Corporate training and team building exercises have a reputation for being unhelpful, corny, and a bit of a waste of time, but this shouldn’t be the case. If your teams are not engaging properly with training and team building then it’s time to look for new approaches that they actually find engaging and valuable.
Instructor led training is exactly what it sounds like; training sessions that are run either face to face or virtually by an instructor. This style of training takes more of a classroom approach where learners are focused on listening to lectures or speeches by an instructor and they will therefore have to contribute little in the way of participation. This might not sound like the most engaging way of doing things, but it is the right way of doing things in certain situations and many people prefer to learn this way because it takes the pressure off them and allows them to fully digest what is being taught.
With all that being said, it is possible to make instructor led learning much more engaging and valuable for team members. Most adult learners find they absorb concepts and ideas better when they are actively engaged with the process through approaches like forum theatre and theatre led learning, so these are some approaches you might like to incorporate into your training, or look for trainers that specialise in this kind of work.
When a member of staff is asked to roleplay a scenario they will be playing a part rather than behaving as they naturally would. This poses problems in the workplace because this can mask their genuine behaviours and make it harder to provide constructive feedback that will actually make a difference to them.
Instead of having your team members engage in roleplay, have them be themselves and introduce scenarios that they need to react to as they naturally would. This can be tricky to achieve without some help, but luckily there are plenty of companies in Singapore that specialise in this kind of training.
It is possible to have someone come in as an actor that the rest of the team on the training course are unaware that they are an actor rather than a genuine colleague. This way you can have the actor introduce themselves as a colleague and have them steer the conversation in a way that promotes the actual members of staff on the training course to react genuinely and to be more receptive to the training.
The more engaging a training course is, the more value the trainees are likely to see in it, and the more the company and individuals will benefit from it as a result. Of course, it is possible to supplement these highly engaging methods with traditional learning methods that are perhaps less engaging to form a complete training strategy that covers all bases and appeals to everyone’s learning style preferences.