S4 NetQuest, a leading corporate learning services firm, recently conducted a survey on training quality among new hires in the medical industry. Over 700 medical professionals, ranging from nurses to medical technicians, participated in the survey, with 46% percent reporting that the training they received did not appropriately prepare them for their jobs.
Other key findings include:
- Immediately after training, 47.6% of respondents reported lacking confidence about starting their jobs.
- Nearly 5% of respondents indicated that the poor level of training made them want to switch jobs.
- As a group, individuals aged 18–24 felt more unprepared going into their current jobs than any other age group.
“These findings are demonstrative of a real problem in the way that medical professionals are trained,” said James Guilkey, PhD, President of S4 NetQuest. “Traditional training does not support the skills-based knowledge required of new hires in the industry, which ultimately puts patients at risk. The medical industry must reevaluate the way that they administer training and also provide better on-the-job support for all new hires.”
The most effective and cost-efficient way to provide safety training for your workforce? Try a demo of BLR’s remarkable TrainingToday® at no cost or obligation.
This survey polled 714 medical professionals over a f5-day period through a Google Consumer Survey. Respondents answered questions about preparedness and confidence related to new-hire training in the field of medicine.
S4 NetQuest is the nation’s leading corporate learning services firm. Integrating proprietary, PhD-level instructional design methodologies, S4 NetQuest designs, develops, and implements custom training solutions for Fortune 500 clients across a variety of industries.
Survey Takeaways
While this survey was for a specific industry, the results can be a wake-up call for training professionals in any industry. Merely conducting training to tick off a regulatory or legal requirement, for example, and keeping the proper records to prove training occurred, is not enough to ensure effective change in employee behavior has been accomplished with the training.
Try a demo of BLR’s remarkable award-winning TrainingToday® at no cost or obligation. This includes the Workplace Safety Library. Get the details.
Here are two takeaways training professionals can learn from the apparent training problems in the medical history:
1. Put as much effort into the methodology of your training as into the content. In other words, seriously consider conducting train-the-trainer sessions or sending your trainers to professional training programs where they can learn the most effective ways to engage employees in the training content so they will retain the information and apply it in their jobs.
2. Make follow-up as important as the training session itself. Follow-up can occur in many different ways, depending on the type of content and industry:
- Written quizzes
- Oral Q&As
- Equipment demonstrations
- Posttraining surveys—both immediately and after a certain length of time back on the job
- On-the-job visits—both scheduled and surprise
- Drills
A complete and effective training program starts before the actual training session, with course content and trainer preparation, and continues after the training session, with follow-up checkups. Make sure your training program is effective at every stage.