How can we create a culture in which our employees value training?
“People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” That’s the part of the analogy that’s missing.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
While self-sufficiency has its place and is commendable, the part missing in many web-based and classroom training programs is the ability to cultivate meaning and purpose. It’s not enough to merely teach a skill to someone. We need to give our employees the proper tools for the job, starting with a purpose; why accomplishing that skill matters.
We work diligently to set them up for success as we train our employees, but do we give them what they need to go beyond self-sufficiency? Do our learning management systems reflect intentionality and purpose with a meaningful end goal in mind? Given the proper tools to fish, or rather, excel at any given task, our employees can find purpose in their jobs as they buy into the meaning behind them, thus passing on that purposeful enthusiasm to customers.
Any training program would do well to keep the power of purpose in mind. What might that purpose be? How can we define, cultivate, and communicate our company’s training purpose? Your training management team might find the following questions helpful to discover the purpose of your training program and share the vision with your team.
Define your training program’s purpose.
- What is your ultimate vision for your training program?
- Does the program’s vision align with the overall vision of the company?
- What results do you want to see?
Cultivate meaning in your training content.
- Are your training tools relevant?
- Are your training tools available and useable?
- Why does your story, or training program, matter to your employees?
Communicate purpose and meaning to your employees.
- Do your employees know and understand your learning goals?
- Do your employees have access to relevant and useable training tools?
- How can you communicate your training course’s purpose to create interest in and motivate your staff?
Being a business that trains simply for the purpose of training will get the job done. But offering a learning management system geared toward carrying out purposeful practices will take the outcome to another level of productivity.
According to the fishing proverb above, a person without fish won’t eat. A person without training won’t learn how to fish. As we’ve taken it further. Without proper tools and the skills to use them in a meaningful way, at best, a person will merely go through the motions. It’s as simple as that. Now, we aren’t saying that training your employees is simple. But it doesn’t have to be rocket science to offer an eLearning course that breathes life and purpose into your instructional design strategy.
Setting your sights on purposeful training will elevate your company by educating your team with the proper understanding of the work they perform and why it matters.
Begin purposefully training your employees by contacting the OSI team for a free trial of our enterprise-level learning management system.
