Laura DiFlorio and Kerrie Main, regional sales directors for Nobscot Corporation (www.nobscot.com), identified these five trends for the coming year on HR.BLR.com:
1. Experiential Training
With its emphasis on games and activities, experiential training is expected to be increasingly popular, says DiFlorio. Experiential training is especially effective with younger workers, who she says tend to have shorter attention spans and thrive in multiple, short training sessions.
2. Moving Away from Individual Learning to Group Learning
This is an expansion of the first trend. DiFlorio says, “We are seeing that group or team activities are really growing.” This, she says, is an outgrowth of an emphasis on teamwork in the workplace.
Group activities are beneficial because they teach communication skills, encourage knowledge transfer, and build trust among coworkers, says Main. Experienced workers benefit from the ideas of less-experienced employees, who, in turn, learn directly from their more-experienced counterparts, she explains.
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3. Cost-Effective Training
This is a trend that continues “year in and year out,” says DiFlorio. “Cost-effective training is going to be a never-ending battle.” However, “there is cost-effective training out there.”
4. Use of Training as a Retention Tool
“Employee retention in 2014 is going to be on the CEO’s radar. It has to be addressed now that the economy is bouncing back a bit,” DiFlorio says.
Mentoring programs are particularly effective at building retention, especially when new hires are immediately paired with mentors, who teach new hires unspoken company rules, how to communicate with upper management, and the like.
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5. Data-Driven Training
With employee feedback from exit interviews, engagement surveys, and new hire surveys, “trainers can target courses and training to meet a very specific need,” DiFlorio says.
DiFlorio and Main recommend that trainers introduce more group games and activities that are aligned with company objectives, look for cost-effective training, promote mentoring as a retention tool, and encourage their company to include questions about training on employee surveys.