Best way to engage employees during a training.
What’s the best way to engage employees during a training? I do certain trainings in house and have found it tough to engage everyone. Obviously certain environmental, health and safety topics can be very dry so trying to engage everyone can be difficult or even borderline impossible. What do you guys do to liven up your trainings?
Also, what are your opinions on PowerPoint? My personal opinion is that the slides can actually be a distraction, and I would venture to say that I get more engagement when I don’t use PowerPoint.
Comments (9)
What works for me is to set some basic ground rules up front, then introductions, if the audience is not to big. You have to make it interactive, when you ask a question, give the audience time to answer. In my blackbelt class they say a 60 second pause should be enough. For the use of PowerPoint, slides can be effective, however don't read from the slides, instead use them as a reference and "talk" to the audience about what you are trying to get across to them. I hate it when someone read directly from the slides, I mean I learned to read in the first grade - it's insulting!
Training employees is totally different than training children. Adults learn by relating past experiences
I feel a "hands on" approach gets them involved and more interactive. They take that experience in the field with them instead of trying to remember what a powerpoint slide has shown.
Good morning,
My approach to training is to use material (pictures and documents) from the plant I am doing the training for and ask a lot of questions.
Keep things lively by including things that are not work related... " If you're on your roof at home what hazards would you face?" and make sure everyone answers the questions.
This has always been a tough one! Like you mention, different subjects can be more difficult. I train my field EHS folks to use physical training demonstrations - Examples would be a harness and lanyard for fall protection, rigging for rigging inspections and general PPE when discussing PPE. You can't always depend on a photo from a PowerPoint slide to get a message through. A good mix of PowerPoint, video and hands on seems to work best for what we do on a day to day basis.
When getting into a work specific task, I would definitely steer clear of a PowerPoint unless it is needed to share technical information. After that, I would complete the training at the work location if it is possible.