Training Engagement

Training Engagement

In typical training, trainees forget almost 80% of what was covered a month after completing the training. Research shows, however, that we can increase retention by increasing the trainees’ engagement during training. Listed below are some strategies that can be used to increase trainee engagement.

Grab and sustain attention - Our brains are wired to alert to the new, novel and unexpected. Throughout training create the unexpected. Provide variety in how you present your content and how trainees interact with it. Unexpected activities, unique presentations and other creative techniques help grab and keep attention. Bring in a manager/supervisor dressed in a ridiculously incorrect uniform to teach proper uniform wear. You’ll get and keep people’s attention (and have fun.)  

Tap into emotion - In addition to asking trainees to connect with your content cognitively, find ways to connect them emotionally. Stories are a particularly effective way to engage emotions. Talk about real people in real situations and how the knowledge/skills you’re teaching impacted them and the situation. Include the emotions (frustration, anger, joy, etc.) the situation created. Telling a story about a particularly angry or happy guest and the emotions it created for the staff is engaging and makes things real.

Tie to a bigger purpose - As you present information, include the why as well as the how. Help trainees see how the knowledge/skills you’re teaching connect with a larger purpose. Hopefully most of the staff you recruited buy into and want to be part of the park’s larger purpose. Talk about how they can use what’s your teaching to make memories for guests, create fun and make kids smile. Help trainees understand that what they’re learning will create meaningful experiences.

Activate and connect to prior knowledge - As often as possible tie new knowledge to knowledge trainees already have. When a trainee starts from something they already know you increase their confidence. You also don’t start from scratch and can build on their previous knowledge. Housekeepers have probably cleaned their own homes so start there. Recreation staff members may have led activities and worked with children at school, at church or an organization like scouts. You could ask them some of the keys to effectively working with children that they learned from their past experiences and then add your content.   

Increase participation - Make your training as interactive as possible. Ask questions, use polls, play games, use small group discussions, do role plays, etc. Help trainees engage with the training content in ways other than just listening to it from a trainer. Get them thinking, talking with others and moving if possible. One caveat…make sure the activities you’re doing are relevant to the training content and you’re just not doing them for the sake of creating participation.

Repetition - Due to the limitations of our brain’s working memory, we quickly forget the content of training sessions. Research shows that within 20 minutes of a training session we can only recall 58% of the content and that recall drops to 34% in 24 hours, 25% in a week and 21% in a week.  The way to overcome this drop in recall is repetition. Each time we repeat a piece of training it comes back into our memory. Throughout training continually review, tie new material to previous material and reference back to information already covered.

Develop multi-sensory experiences - The more senses we engage the more likely it is trainees will connect with our training content. Different trainees learn in different ways. Some process information best verbally, some visually and some through hands on activity. Give trainees the opportunity to see, hear and do. Talk about your content but also use visuals and get hands on as much as possible.