- leadership
- Blog post
For maximum impact, get employees to train each other
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Stephen Meyer
Founder & Managing Director
on March 4, 2011
The best-conceived training course can still fail if it doesn’t engage the employees taking it. And there are ways to engage employees that go beyond having them regurgitate what they’ve (supposedly) learned.
One such way: Get the employees themselves to teach others.
Teach thyself
When people have to explain – and defend – what they’ve learned, they retain it better and grow more committed to it.
So consider training some of your respected senior people and letting them train the rest. Of course, you’ll want to monitor the training and check afterward that all participants have learned what they should have.
Another principle to apply: “Don’t tell me; let me tell you.” In the best interactive employee training experiences, participants have opportunities to tell one another and the instructor why the new methods are important.
Remember, adults don’t like authority figures telling them to modify their behavior, during training or otherwise. But if you let them explain to others why what they’ve learned is important, you bolster everyone’s chances of internalizing the training.
2 Comments
This concept can lead to the passing along of bad habits that go against company policy and best practices. Especially if you are having one of your “old timers,” who is respected and indulged because of things other than job performance, doing the training. Or if the practices have been modified and the employee trainer doesn’t agree with the new practices.
This concept can lead to the passing along of bad habits that go against company policy and best practices. Especially if you are having one of your “old timers,” who is respected and indulged because of things other than job performance, doing the training. Or if the practices have been modified and the employee trainer doesn’t agree with the new practices.