Take a moment to think about how many skills you have.
How many of them came through training? Wishing for skills without training is like hoping to play Stairway To Heaven after a few hours with a guitar.
Okay, some people like Mozart are born musical prodigies, but for the rest of us, training is essential!
We like to think of training like martial arts. You wouldn't put someone in the ring without first giving them the skills, techniques, and knowledge they need to win, right?
Let’s get your warriors work-ready!
What are training sessions generally used for?
A training session is a gathering at work with a purpose; for employees to gain some form of new skill, knowledge, or guidance. Training sessions come in many shapes and sizes and go by different names. Some different types of training that improve variable functions and abilities in staff include:
- Workshops: A workshop is generally a brief, intensive learning session, often including a hands-on activity for a relatively small group of people. They’re great for team building and workshops are often self-contained so that the session’s intended lesson is learned in one sitting or one day.
- Seminars: A seminar is where a group comes to focus on a specific topic. Remember at university when you’d ask: “Is this a lecture or a seminar?” A seminar intends to encourage two-way discussions, with additional tasks, rather than one-way dictatorial learning. They’re really effective for professional development.
- Online courses: As companies shift to adapt to online work, like remote and hybrid systems, a lot of training sessions are now run through online courses. Online courses are a powerful tool for optimizing remote work.
- Onboarding: When a new employee enters the work arena, they’re generally given quite a long period of training, practicing, and improving in their role. This is called onboarding, and it lasts anywhere from three to six months, while some companies opt for longer or shorter onboarding. It can depend on your work environment and culture.
These are just a few titles for different types of training. Training is integral to keeping the company's lifeblood healthy. Research shows that companies with solid employee training programs have 218% higher income per employee, compared to companies without formalized training.
In today’s business world, staff are excelling in so many different functions that training can make-or-break their experience. Training can be given to a new starter, or to a seasoned vet who is branching out into new, advancing responsibilities.
The importance of training can hardly be overstated, so let’s look at what makes a good training session.
Steps to creating effective training sessions
Now we’ve outlined some of the different uses and names for training, we’ve got a 6-step plan that, in a general sense, can apply to organizing any training session (apart from Gladiator training, perhaps…)
1. Define your objective(s)
Whether you’re planning for a closely-knit team or a large group, you’ve got to start as you mean to go on! The most useful step to begin is creating one or more objectives or outcomes that you want from your training session. In some ways, defining your objectives is similar to a teacher’s plan for their students in a classroom. Teachers often create a few short sentences when planning a lesson, such as:
- By the end of the lesson (your training session), students (attendees) are able to understand…
- Everyone attending today’s session should afterward be able to apply this knowledge to…
These two simple sentences illustrate concrete criteria that should be met by the end of your session. These objectives might be personal targets specific to yourself, or targets that company executives set (or even a bit of both!).
Training sessions don’t always go exactly to plan and can rely on a lot of variable factors, so making clear and concrete objectives beforehand is a way to check whether or not you achieved what you set out to do.
Having honest reflection after the session is a valuable exercise too. Why not set up some light-hearted interviews after? You could ask the company executives for their input on the training, or even gauge how it went from the attendees themselves.
This first step is basically the defining signpost that you can return to when you want a simple yes/no on whether your objectives are being met. Never overlook the power of simple, personal quantifiers to measure the success of a training session.
2. Frame your work
No building laid on an unstable foundation lasted for long. After you’ve chosen your desired objectives, now you need to consider how your message will reach everyone attending.
One great thing about learning frameworks is that you can choose to be as relaxed or academic as you want. Just know that more planning generally increases the likelihood of following the plan.
Kolb’s learning cycle is a great introductory framework you could use. It basically illustrates 4 stages in a learning cycle (the learning cycle being the training session, from start to finish). David A. Kolb, who created the framework, felt that using all 4 stages helps a learner “touch all the bases” of learning. The 4 stages are:
- Concrete experience: Having the actual experience.
- Reflective observation: Reflecting on that experience.
- Abstract conceptualization: Learning from the experience.
- Active experimentation: Trying out the thing you have learned.
It’s quite academic and could be a little too rigid for your less formal sessions, so don’t be afraid to slightly deviate from the plan, if the occasion calls for it. Just keep your framework in mind to make sure all attendees are learning as much as they possibly can from the training, and return to it if you get lost.
3. Plan the opening
Now you’ve got a set of objectives to aim for, and a general framework to follow that helps you get there. Now you’ve basically got to think “How can I best open my training session?”
The opening sets the tone for the rest of the proceeding. In the first section of training, you want to set the atmosphere and let everyone know what they’re in for. The specific purposes of training sessions always differ, but feel free to follow these 4 small points to create a good opening (we’ve got slightly informal cues to follow in brackets):
- Start with an introduction: Hi everyone, I’m (you), (your role) at (your company). Thanks for being here today. I do know most of you, but there are some new faces. Let’s start by…
- Announce the session’s duration and subject: We’re here to get into (topic), which should take us about half an hour…
- Explain why it’s happening: What we’re trying to do today is help you understand how (purpose)... We’ll be using (activity) to boost (function)...
- Let everyone know why they’re chosen to be there: I chose you all to attend because I know how effective it will be to help you (reason for attendance)...
Following these 4 points should set up your training sessions with a friendly learning atmosphere and help everyone feel relaxed for teambuilding and training games. Try them out, and don’t be afraid to deviate too. Trust your guts!
4. Agendas and activities
Now you’re planning for the middle section of your training, which can be the “meat” of the session. If it’s carried out properly, this is the time when most of the important lessons can be absorbed, and even put into practice!
From your signpost framework earlier, let’s say you’re starting out in the “concrete experience” section, or part 1 of the model. Explain and have everyone carry out a practical teambuilding activity. There’s the concrete experience.
Move on to the next step “reflective observation” by, you guessed it, reflecting on what went well and what didn’t. Learn lessons from the activity and move to the next step. This whole section of the training is to optimize what is being learned. At the same time, don’t overdo it. If you only have 30 minutes to play with, keep that in mind. Rome wasn’t built in 1 day!
Make sure everyone has the agenda printed beforehand and you’re almost completely set for an effective training session.
5. Stay flexible for all learning styles
Whenever a training session, practical workshop, or seminar is carried out, it should benefit as many people as possible. There is no point in creating training sessions that only we would like. Think about this principle as you set your training session up.
Your teams are likely made up of people from diverse backgrounds, with varying learning styles. Many people work best through language rather than action, so including a dialogue activity or conversation games in your training can elevate your sessions for them. Other people learn best through kinesthetic movement or physical activities, so why not include a few physical warm-up exercises for them?
The whole principle of this step is to be open-minded about the different ways people learn. Even with your PowerPoint design, many people take in information best through subtle color systems. There’s no end to optimizing your training sessions.
If you’re flexible and open to learning how other people learn, bring your training sessions to new heights with diverse activities. You never know, you might end up ticking everyone’s boxes!
6. Observing the ending and following up
Now you’ve got practical every base covered beforehand for a fantastic training session. One thing you can’t plan 100% for is how the activities go down on the day, and how best you can follow the training session up. However, there are a few ways to best prepare!
Make sure you’re clear on timing: It’s okay for some steps in the session to be a little longer or shorter than planned, but there’s nothing worse than carrying one out and losing track of time.
You think: “Wow, this is going fantastically! I could do this for ages!”
Then you glimpse up at the clock and you’re 5 minutes past your announced finishing time. Great session, but now a few attendees are late for an important date. Tragic…
Be clear on how attendees move forward: The ending of the session is, in many ways, as important as the beginning. Action plans for everyone on how to use their training is a great technique.
Use feedback from members: If your session went well, attendees will be more than happy to share what they liked about it. Constructive criticisms are valuable too, helping you improve future iterations and promoting continuous learning in the company.
A closing moment: Just taking a moment to thank everyone and provide them with a thoughtful farewell leaves a lasting impression. Small gestures like asking everyone to say “goodbye” in their native language (if your teams are international) help build bonds.
We hope these 6 steps make your training sessions sparkle and bring a productive atmosphere to your teams. But wait, there’s more!...
A training session on a work retreat is simply untouchable!
If you’re in the business of enhancing your teams through an effective training session, you really shouldn’t overlook the power of using it on a team-building retreat.
A twice-annual retreat for your teams provides an unforgettable and productive environment that helps stress melt away like a cube of sugar in a swimming pool.
Here at Surf Office, organizing team retreats is what we do best.
Here’s what we offer:
- Stress-free transfers? We got you! ✅
- Quality-assured accommodations? Check! ✅
- Engaging team-building activities? Our speciality ✅
- Restaurant reservations? That's on us! ✅
- Expert retreat planning assistance? Of course, we have this covered! ✅
- Onsite support, tailored to your needs? Absolutely ✅
Not only this but we also have access to 160+ locations around Europe, APAC, the US, Latin America, and now Africa, meaning the sky is your limit when it comes to choosing the right location for you and your team.
Training sessions can be magnificent, no doubt about it, but when you carry one out in an unforgettable location, you’re really cooking with gas! You can even organize a remote team retreat through us too!
Let us sort out the tricky logistics for you. Spaces are very limited, so get in touch now!
