Once upon a time in a workplace far far away one of our colleagues was being trained on, or to put it more accurately instructed how to follow, a new process. When they asked for clarification in order to better understand the reason behind the process they were told that they didn’t need to understand, they simply had to do as they were told.

Now before you throw your hands up in horror and exclaim that you’d never get away with that in today’s more open marketplace just stop and think for a moment. Is there any chance that we might be guilty of the same thing? When we give our call centre people scripts to follow are we looking for them to act as quasi-automata or do we go out of our way to provide enough background for them to act on their initiative in certain cases.

And when we set out training plans, are they prescriptive or exploratory? Do we encourage self-expression and self-learning or do we simply lay down a pathway that has to be followed? More importantly, is the training geared to the needs, abilities, and outlook of the individual? After all, it’s a fair bet that our people will span the generations from baby boomers to Gen Z and each generation learns in a very different way. As a result any set training pathway is far more likely to suit some rather than others and that is not good either for individuals or the business as a whole.

As company leaders we are expected to look after the needs of all of our people and that includes ensuring that not only is training relevant, its delivery is also geared towards helping people to engage with the message. Only then can we be sure that they are more likely to act and make decisions which are in the best interests of the organisation, its customers, and the wider constituency. With that in mind, how can we help our people to engage with training?

Make it relevant. This means not only offering training which will help people to better carry out their tasks but also which helps them to better appreciate their place in the organisation.

Provide background. Why is just as important as how when it comes to training. If I don’t know why then how can I know if the decisions I am making and the processes I am following are providing the best outcome for the business.

Offer multiple pathways. Taught courses, online interactions, gaming scenarios, virtual reality. There is no one right way to train so by offering a broad sweep of options you increase the chance of your people finding a way to better engage with and assimilate the message.