5 Training tips for more engaged employees

According to a Gallup poll, engaged workers are 17% more productive. The benefits of increased employee engagement range from decreased burnout and fewer workplace safety incidents to lower turnover and better customer service. It’s no surprise, then, that companies are prioritizing it. But how can employers increase employee engagement?

Who better to answer that question than BLR’s learning and development team? We have a staff of content specialists, instructional designers, and LMS administrators applying decades of experience to create effective training programs. Below are five training tips straight from the team!

Change it up

Let’s face it: Training can get boring when you sit through the same course a dozen times. Your brain turns off, and you start daydreaming about your after-work plans. As trainers, we must shake things up occasionally to keep the team focused on the training. Below are a few ways you can add variety to your learning.

Co-presenters

Mix up the presenters when possible. This is sometimes easier said than done, but there are big benefits to multiple speakers when you can swing it. That’s why we use alternating male/female voices in our eLearning! Listening to a single presenter talk for 30 minutes can feel tiring, but multiple speakers can feed off each other and fill in the gaps.

Guest speakers

Introducing a guest speaker series is another way to mix up your training efforts. Guest speakers offer more diverse points of view and new perspectives and insights. These speakers don’t have to be from outside your organization. Invite a stakeholder from another department, or ask a teammate from your department to provide an update on a project or an initiative.

Personally, guest speakers have been a big hit with our team. They’ve offered cross-training opportunities and provided our staff with a holistic view of how teams and departments are interconnected. One team member expressed, “The practice of sharing an inner peek at other departments via the Team Training Sessions also pulls me in. I like understanding the bigger picture … plus, it definitely makes me feel connected in our remote working environment.”

Mid-training assessment

For dense or process-heavy training sessions, baking in assessments throughout your training is a great way to gauge your team’s understanding of the concept. Those assessments could include knowledge checks, surveys, polls, or collaborative breakout activities. Regardless of how your training is delivered—whether in person or virtually or whether everyone gathers together or accesses materials at their own pace—evaluating your team’s understanding of the training is important. This will help you determine where learners need to go next on their training journey.

Multimodal formats

Diversifying the formats of your training sessions is a surefire way to boost engagement. You can use online assets like PDFs and videos or opt for in-person interactive training both inside and outside the office. The goal of your training (teambuilding, process update, or launching a new team or department initiative) will dictate the best modality mix. For example, our department has a quarterly meeting to go through the financials, a monthly Team Training Series for cross-training with internal and external stakeholders, and weekly supplemental team meetings to share information across teams and stay on track.

Skills development and professional growth.

Thankfully, at BLR®, we have access to a wide breadth of eLearning content at our fingertips. In addition to mandatory annual training, like sexual harassment, teams across the entire organization have access to TrainingToday’s full course catalog. This open access allows employees to find additional training opportunities for topics like leadership development, software instructions, or soft skills such as communication skills, teambuilding, or time management.

Professional development outside our suite of online training is also encouraged. We strongly advocate for employees to find training opportunities that fit their preferred learning method, whether listening to a webinar, attending a conference, or reading an industry report. We also encourage employees to bring what they’ve learned back to the team. Peer-to-peer learning is a powerful development tool that taps into existing expertise and newfound knowledge.

Prioritize team building

I know what you’re thinking: Teambuilding is important for teams to function well together, but how is it important for training and development? Here’s what the team has to say:

“The monthly huddle has been a fun and good way to keep our team engaged and learning more about each other. The more we understand each other, the better we are as a work team too. There’s just more trust.”

“In general, leaning on each other’s strengths and areas of expertise is a great way to keep people engaged and interested. When people feel seen and relied upon for certain tasks or skill sets that only they bring to the team, it makes them feel valued and even more eager to show up.”

“I believe even in a hybrid or remote work environment, flexibility and building meaningful bonds are super important. Meaningful bonds aid in employee’s involvement and enthusiasm towards their leadership, co-workers, and in elements of their work.”

Teambuilding looks different for every group, and sometimes it’s tough to purposefully set aside time for it. But it doesn’t have to be complicated. Bring in a group lunch, set up a happy hour (live or virtual) with icebreaker questions, or schedule a community service day out of the office to give people a chance to interact and give back. Want something even easier? Set aside time at the end of your team meetings for kudos. Get the ball rolling by calling out some excellent acts of teamwork, and the rest of the group will catch on. It’s a great way to end on a positive note!

Training incentives

Competition is the best form of motivation, right? Well, some would argue that prizes (*cough* cash) are the ultimate motivator. Get with HR or senior leadership to see how you can incorporate some prizes into your training initiatives.

Here are a few real-life examples BLR uses:

• A weekly gift card for answering a trivia question at the end of a weekly update from our CEO
• Coffee shop gift cards for the winning team in a department-level trivia
• Cash prizes for an “innovation challenge” in which employees from different departments work together to try and solve a problem chosen by the executive team
• Gift certificates for participation in employee wellness challenges

And while we’ve found monetary prizes help drive engagement, we also have success with special badges and certificates of excellence for employees who opt into voluntary professional growth training.

Open up to your people

As training professionals, we know how important it is to give constant feedback. Whether that’s through a one-on-one conversation, assessment scores, or survey feedback, it’s the individual, the team, and the organization. When providing feedback, don’t forget to add a personal touch to that communication to encourage employee engagement. Even a little praise goes a long way; when employees know they’re on the right track, they are invigorated with enthusiasm. You will then see that enthusiasm portrayed in every aspect of their role at your organization and in the quality of their work.

Communicating with employees about training programs or projects and the reasons behind them can also help with engagement and motivation. Knowing there is a point to what you are doing can be beneficial, rather than doing something just because a manager said so. You will create stronger buy-in from your team when you include them in the decision-making process and provide the “whys” behind the training program.

Finally, don’t be shy about asking for feedback. There’s always room for improvement in any training program, and the more comfortable your team(s) feels sharing feedback, the more of an impact future training can have.

I’ll close this out with one final quote from the team:

“Being asked for input also keeps me engaged! It creates a healthy moment of pause and reflection that I truly appreciate.”