How to Create Training that Drives Behavioural Change
Corporate training can have a range of objectives and desired outcomes, but one of the most common is behavioural change. In other words, getting employees to do things differently or better than before. However, successfully implementing a training course in your organisation is not the same as changing behaviours.
There are several steps you can take to ensure you not only create high-quality training courses, but that you also achieve the desired levels of behavioural change.
Create a Learning Culture
You can use multiple development, communication, and follow-up strategies with your training courses to ensure behavioural change takes place, but the best starting point is to establish and nurture a learning culture within the organisation.
A learning culture needs to be led and 100 percent supported from the top. It will deliver a range of different benefits, including ensuring your training activities are as effective as possible.
Start at the End
It is common to get started with the development of a new training course as soon as possible, but the best approach is to take a step back to make sure you fully understand the behaviours that need to change. Are the right assumptions being made and has there been a proper assessment of the performance gap?
Without asking these questions and others to ensure you fully understand the behavioural changes that you want to effect, you risk creating training materials that miss the mark.
Provide Ongoing Access to Training Courses and Materials
It is important that learners complete the training courses that you develop to create behavioural change. However, it is also important that the training isn’t a one-off event. This means making sure learners have ongoing access to the training course so they can refer back to it whenever needed. E-learning is one of the best training delivery methods to make this possible.
It is also beneficial to create additional training material that covers the topic in more detail, provides new perspectives, or takes learners to the next level of knowledge and/or ability.
Communicate With Learners
It is next to impossible to achieve behavioural change without telling learners what you expect of them. Therefore, it is important to set clear objectives, goals, and expectations through effective communication before, during, and after the training takes place.
Make the Training Relevant to Learner Needs
If learners feel the training is not relevant to their requirements, duties, or responsibilities, they won’t have any motivation to change their behaviour. They may not even understand how or if the behavioural change expectations apply to them. Making the training as relevant and personalised as possible will help to overcome this barrier to behavioural change.
Provide Just-in-Time Training
Just-in-time training, typically delivered via e-learning courses, is a highly effective method of achieving behavioural change. This is because learners complete just-in-time training whenever they have the greatest need, i.e., when the required change in behaviour is at its most acute.
Reinforce and Refresh
Behavioural change is a long-term effort, so it’s beneficial to create ongoing training materials that reinforce and refresh the content in the minds of learners. This can help prevent situations where behaviours start to slip back into old habits over time.
Use Microlearning Training Strategies
Microlearning training strategies using e-learning as the delivery method are highly effective for a range of reasons, including the behavioural change they can achieve. Microlearning allows learners to learn when it is most convenient. This will also be when learners are at their most willing and attentive, so they are more likely to take in the information.
Promote Knowledge Sharing
Another strategy you can use to ensure your training drives behavioural change is to foster a culture of knowledge sharing. When employees see their colleagues and peers doing things a certain way and achieving success using new skills and knowledge, they will be more motivated to do the same.
Provide Feedback
Asking for feedback from learners is important to ensure continuous improvement of your training courses and overall training strategy. It is also essential to achieve the required levels of behavioural change. After all, employees won’t know they are falling short unless they are told.
You are likely to need the assistance of line managers and supervisors to assess behaviour and provide learners with the necessary feedback, so you will need to get them on board.
Driving Behavioural Change
Behavioural change is not a given whenever you are developing and implementing new training courses and materials. You can design the best training that your organisation has ever produced but you may not achieve the required behavioural changes unless you follow the steps and tips in this blog.
The main takeaway is that the training itself is not enough. You also need to have the right culture, learners need to have easy and ongoing access to relevant training, and you need to give accurate and honest feedback.