Haven’t we all sat through (or maybe even orchestrated) a snoozy training class? One of the reasons employee training is often not as effective as it should be is that we don’t really know how people feel or what they believe before the training starts. It’s pretty crazy when you think about it: You spend many hours creating a training program that in the end not only misses the mark but makes attendees pray for an impromptu midmorning drug test!
It’s easy to say, “We really need to train in this area or that area.” However, if that area is one that’s not really important to your employees-if they really want training on something else-then they believe you do not value their opinions. This also holds true if they believe the training should be conducted in a certain way or should contain a specific curriculum that you’re not providing.
When they sit through training that doesn’t match up with what they want or what they feel is a priority, they receive a message you don’t intend to send: “Your opinion matters very little here.” And considering that employee opinion drives productivity, asking people what they think is a no-brainer.
Why is it so important that your employees feel heard? It fosters engagement, without which your organization will struggle in these four areas (at the very least):
- Unreached potential. You never know how good your employees are unless they believe they have a good job. Without their full engagement, you’ll never draw out their full potential.
- Attrition. Employees who are not engaged tend to leave. Engaged employees are vital to a company’s profitability. It costs far too much to keep hiring and training new employees.
- Customer engagement. It’s difficult to have engaged customers in your business-people happy to do business with you-if your employees don’t like what they’re doing. That feeling of disengagement can transfer from employees to customers and also from disengaged managers to workers.
- Safety. Disengagement, in certain industries, can even be dangerous! Research shows that engaged employees are 43% safer than their disengaged counterparts. In addition, 9 in 10 employees who are engaged and like their jobs will see safety as a top priority; but among employees who don’t care for their jobs, only 2 in 10 place that level of importance on safety. In short, an environment full of disengaged employees is far less safe.
One effective way to create engagement, to tell your employees that you hear and respect their opinion, is to implement anonymous surveys. These surveys are the tool you need to find out how your people think and feel. You begin to see obstacles that hinder employee engagement. Now you have useful information that allows you to build solutions to the problems your employees perceive.
Unfortunately, it’s somewhat common to gather information from surveys but then do nothing with the data months or even years later. It’s crucial to process your employees’ anonymous responses because they shed light on problems you didn’t even know your organization had. Then you can offer effective training that centers around those solutions-training that your employees embrace and that makes them feel engaged. Building solutions from surveys so that you can offer training that’s actually worth the time and effort is… well, it’s worth the time and effort!
Check out the link below to learn more about how any organization can dramatically reduce attrition rates and attract and keep top performers. https://evolvepg.com/Wynn-Solutions
Employee Engagement Speaker Garrison Wynn: Program Descriptions
