How to Make Employee Training More Engaging

Is your employee training tactical or tedious? The answer could have real consequences for your business’s success.  

This year, only 44 percent of workers said they were extremely or very satisfied with their opportunities for training and skills development, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center.

Sure, creating new and improved programming could be time-consuming and require more resources, but good training can help with retention, says Robyn Hopper, a human resources expert at the Society for Human Resource Management. “If I’m not getting the training that I need, I’m not going to stay with a company,” she says.

As the new year approaches, here’s how to make your employee training more engaging and effective:  

Focus on specific skills   

No matter how it’s presented, the material given in employee training needs to be useful and purposeful. Executive coach Alisa Cohn points to the inverted pyramid–or the 70-20-10 model–for learning and development, in which 70 percent of learning comes from on-the-job experiences, 20 percent comes from learning from others, and 10 percent comes from formal training and coursework. That 10 percent needs to cover the most salient skills and how they can be applied on the job, Cohn says.  

At Buildout, a Chicago-based commercial real estate software company, information sharing and training proved challenging when the team became fully remote in 2020. So when Elizabel Riggs joined the company as talent and development manager in 2022, she set out to revamp its employee training sessions.  

Now, Buildout has developed a comprehensive onboarding program, providing 12 to 16 hours of training within an employee’s first month, through the learning management system WorkRamp. Aside from the foundational training sessions, which cover the ins and outs of commercial real estate terms, the rest of the training can vary, Riggs says. For instance, one team member may need more product training than another. 

“I think being able to work individually with teams and managers to make these plans individualized has given a lot of value to our new hires, and we’re definitely seeing in-ramp times decreasing, as well,” Riggs says.  

It’s not just entry-level positions that require specific training. Company leaders should consider the key skills needed at every level of the organization–including their own–to ensure that they are providing sufficient learning opportunities and creating a “culture of lifelong learning,” Cohn says. 

Leverage internal expertise  

Learning from others is one of the biggest components of employee training, Hopper says. At Buildout, about 50 percent of the company contributed their knowledge to the new training program, Riggs says. “Tap into your people. There’s going to be some knowledge stored away in areas maybe you haven’t thought of that could be that real difference-maker,” she says.  

Caliber Corporate Advisers, a New York City-based marketing and communications agency, taps different team members to be “professors” in a program dubbed the Caliber College of Public Relations.

Similar to Buildout, Caliber saw a need for better virtual training sessions when the company shifted to a remote-first model in 2020, says president Grace Keith Rodriguez. Through this program, new employees attend one or two sessions per week for a few months. “Professors” train employees on a variety of topics, from building a media list to calendar time blocking.

Getting the first few team members on board is key, Rodriguez says, but after that, leaders can expect to see their efforts flourish. “You start to see more and more interest, and you are able to take advantage of other leaders within the team and raise them up and give them a chance to train, too,” she says.  

Incorporate interactivity  

With a breadth of expertise on board, the next challenge is keeping the programming interesting–and interactivity can be a big help. “Just PowerPoint presentations without other things to break it up–it’s boring, and nobody’s paying attention,” Hopper says.  

Breakout sessions could be one solution for this, allowing trainees to discuss topics in smaller groups where they may feel more comfortable speaking up, she says. Companies can also use role-playing activities to test real-life scenarios. At Caliber, curriculum sessions have included role-playing exercises on how to introduce yourself at industry events, for instance. 

Gamification has also become a popular tool, says Ted Blosser, CEO and co-founder of WorkRamp. And, according to a recent study, it’s an effective one, supporting better retention and revenue. At WorkRamp, that means integrating leaderboards and prizes into training sessions to inspire friendly competition and encourage people to learn. But with more technological advances on the horizon, Blosser sees the toolbox expanding even further. 

For instance, he foresees A.I. bots playing an outsize role in training and answering employee questions on the spot. “We’re going to migrate from this on-demand, static training and learning into this conversational learning that will feel more like you have a private coach,” he says.  

Gather feedback  

To truly strengthen employee training, follow-up is key. “[Companies] have to have a mechanism to make sure that a month or six weeks later people are using the material, and get a check-in about how it’s going,” Cohn says.  

Caliber, for instance, surveys trainees halfway through the curriculum and then again at the end, using those results to guide future training sessions. “We’ve even used some of the midway survey intel to inform the next sessions for the rest of that cohort … So we’re able to be pretty nimble on that front,” Rodriguez says. 

Just don’t expect perfection right away. Even if you start with just two revamped sessions, Rodriguez adds, that will provide useful insights and could improve training for your workforce. “And once you get over that initial effort, you’re able to see what else you can do from there,” she says.