Professional development is essential to the growth and strength of your business, but putting together effective training can be difficult. Here are a few things to keep at the front of your mind as you develop your next training.

Engage Different Learning Styles

Your employees will fail to learn 100% of the content they are not engaged by, so successfully training your employees starts with thinking carefully about how your training materials appeal to different learning styles. Some people learn best in hands-on environments, while others learn better independently. The more options you offer for engaging with training, the higher your engagement rates will be.

Incorporate Reflection

Some things, though, work well for people of all different learning styles. In 2014, a Harvard Business School study found that the majority of people learn more efficiently when there is some kind of summative reflection built into the learning activity, whether that’s describing what they’ve learned in their own words to a partner or demonstrating the skill to someone else.

Be Prepared to Teach it Again

When rolling out a new product that everybody on your team needs to master — like a new tech platform — it might be best to offer several training sessions. The first, large-group training might be enough instruction for some of your employees, but there will likely be some employees who will need a bit more support and guidance. You can give them that in a second, smaller group training.

Finally, don’t forget to ask for employee feedback! A well-designed training assessment both provides meaningful feedback about the quality of instruction and helps communicate to employees that the training is about their growth and development as much as it is about the organization’s.

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