When it comes to activities that most employees and organizations tend to dismiss as useless, ”corporate training” is unfortunately the most common to come up. How could this possibly be? Don’t we all agree that continuous learning is one of the root fundamentals of achieving great success in any career? Nobody would deny this for any other endeavor in life, and yet we groan incessantly of the productive time being lost in corporate training.
However, the other side of the coin reveals the sad truth. A quick look at corporate training materials will show that the content is often bland in delivery, rarely addresses skills required to promote workforce excellence, or motivate people to take actionable steps to ensure they benefit from taking the course.
Not all training falls under this umbrella. In fact, there are many courses out there that are considered successful. Proof? People will want to take these courses over and over again, recommending them to their friends while fanatically raving about the results achieved with what they learned. Therefore, the correct question that needs to be asked is, “What vital few factors do consistently successful corporate training courses have in common?”
#1: Relevance to Company Goals
This may seem like common sense in nature that is worth repeating, but you will be surprised at how much time you will save when you follow this principle. Example: What would be the point of learning Excel skills when your company is looking to increase revenue by 500% before the year ends? This example is over-exaggerated, but the point still holds. You will have to be extremely ruthless and honest with yourself while deciding whether a given form of training will directly contribute toward the achievement of your goals.
#2: Specific Behaviors
The training must teach specific behaviors that can be implemented by the organization. Example: If the primary goal is to improve revenue by 500%, the course must explain and teach behaviors that directly contribute to the achievement of this goal. A viable option could be formulating a sales pitch to convert more customers toward a purchase.
#3: Tracking & Measurement
With your key behaviors set in place, their implementation should be guaranteed each and every day, while making a significant difference in reaching the goal. As Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured gets improved.” Above example continued: You could track the number of conversions that your new sales pitch generates every single day and compare your results on a week-to-week basis.
#4: Accountability
This is the magic “WOW” factor that adds to all of the above steps. It is one thing to report to yourself the results that you have obtained, but how about reporting to the authority that has the power to fire you in an instant if the results are unsatisfactory? Accountability provides people with the extra drive to get things done and deliver results. When you are held accountable to your superior, you will do whatever it takes to get the necessary results.
By giving high relevance to your company goals, implementing specific behaviors that can be tracked and measured, and regularizing accountability, you can guarantee that any custom corporate training will have a huge impact on the results that your company gets.
