3 Training Methods for Employees

Humor me for once, as we step outside organizational learning, outside training philosophy, and outside all other new age experimentalism and theory, and just look at the wide, general forms of training methods for employees there are. I spend a lot of time exploring the many flavors of organizational learning, of gamification and the like, and I compare them to traditional models and the like … which is all well and good, but what general training methods are there? Some people may be looking for simple employee training methods which they can quickly implement, even if they’re not revolutionary. Not everyone has time to master even basic organizational learning, or work out advanced gamification models. I get that, so here are a few of the general methods out there, in a nutshell. First, there is a traditional model I often refer to, and while I have my problems with this model, some people appreciate it and expect it, and it does work if less efficiently than modern new ideas. In business training, this comes in the form of lectures and tests, more like a college class than a grade school one. It usually doesn’t include grading and in depth curricular planning, and just deploys courses as relevance demands. This model has its problems, as I said. A lot of employees don’t want to revisit the classroom. It’s often tedious, and very Spartan in its philosophy, not encouraging teamwork natively, and often not working for how some people learn. But, if you want a tried and through brute force, effective model, this one has stood the test of time. Now, there’s the organizational learning model this blog has examined a lot about. What it is at its core is training the students as a unit, encouraging teamwork, cross-training and parallel patterns of learning and testing, which is easier to manage, and flexible in hour the learning process is handled. It’s more open ended, allowing things to use it as a delivery platform, such as knowledge management, gamification and other unique ideas. This one’s flaw is it takes a little study and procedure to work out and implement, where classrooms do not. However, it’s far more effective. Finally, there’s the social learning concept which is also often called corporate talent development, which is a softer, more holistic approach, but shares similarities to organizational learning in many respects. This approach is easier to learn, but has the drawback of being soft, and requiring a lot more psychological and sociological skill than the other two. It requires ore intuition and more guidance on an emotional level, meaning that only real social people work well as students or teachers in this model. So, it has its drawbacks, though it’s gentle and informal, which is a definite plus. These are only a few of the training methods for employees, but they’re the most widely used of the lot, for better or worse. While there are alternatives, they’re less common or even more obsolete than the traditional model, and no longer considered viable in modern business environments. If you’re being pushed into training, but it’s not your role, you have options, some are easy to implement, but the easier it is, the longer it’s bound to take to be effective, remember that.