From the course: Setting and Managing Realistic Expectations for Your L&D Program

Employee commitment to learning and development

From the course: Setting and Managing Realistic Expectations for Your L&D Program

Employee commitment to learning and development

- Creating instruction that you know is going to help your organization achieve things like lower accident rates, creating better experiences for customers, or making product faster, is exciting and beneficial to the organization. But, that doesn't mean always that your coworkers will flock to the instruction. Your coworkers are busy, and training can sometimes take a backseat to other demands. You're going to have to be as much of a marketer as you are a training developer, and you're probably not ever going to reach all of your coworkers. So an important early step is to set realistic expectations with management about employee training participation rates. You want to avoid the rookie mistake of setting an expectation of 100% employee participation in the training. In my experience, even with the label, "mandatory," it's almost impossible to have everyone participate. This is because of schedules, perceived value, and sometimes a certain a level of (chuckles), "I already know everything." And, believe it or not, some people even rebel against the very word, "mandatory," and purposely try to avoid that type of training. Unfortunately, there are countless other reasons you can't control for why people don't attend corporate training. But, don't beat yourself up or your department up if you don't get 100% participation. Check out historical training participation rates within your organization and use those as a benchmark, and work toward improving those numbers. If you don't have historical figures, start keeping track of participation numbers, and work to increase those numbers over time. Also, focus on what you can control. Remember, you can control the effort and quality you put into giving those who do attend the training the best possible training experience. In fact, make it so useful that those who miss the training will feel jealous. And this brings me to my next point. You're going to have to do a little campaigning to get your coworkers on board. For example, start a word-of-mouth campaign about how good the last training program was, and use those who attended to help spread the message. Or, you might set up an email campaign reminding your coworkers of the corporate training library. Another suggestion is to create posters or place table tents in the cafeteria that highlight the What's In It For Me, the WIIFM, directly to the employees. A more strategic approach might include having one-on-one meetings with managers to encourage them to speak to their employees about the value of training. Or, shooting a video of the CEO explaining why training is valuable to the organization. The point is, you can't just create the training and expect people to know it exists and to naturally see the value to themselves, their department, and the organization. Instead, you've got to remind people of the available training, and how valuable it is for their career. Create the best possible, most useful instruction, and you can then put on your marketing hat and get people excited about what training can do for them.

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