Developing a training vision for success

Recently the aQuire team was hired as an advisor to a new family caregiver project being developed out of New York City. One of the developers of the project is a man who serves on the board for an East Coast University’s school of business. He tells the story of a recent meeting where the board’s agenda was to “vision the school in 10 years.” My new friend, Barry, begins by raising his hand and saying, “In 10 years we know that most students will take at least a portion of their classes online.”

Barry was met by total silence. After an awkward couple of minutes, one of the school’s administrators said, “Well, that’s an interesting perspective but not really how we prefer to teach.”

Barry responded, appropriately, “It’s not going to matter as much how ‘we prefer to teach’ as it matters how our students prefer to learn. And evidence today shows that most will prefer at least a portion of their training online.”

He is right, you know. It doesn’t really matter how we prefer to teach – it does matter how the people we’re trying to teach prefer to learn.

When it comes to employees and training, one thing is clear: traditional approaches to training are one of the least enjoyable ways our staff prefers to learn.

Imagine if you were required to attend a training session on your day off – or in the middle of the night. For many of our employees that’s exactly what we’re asking them to do to simply attend regularly scheduled inservices. It’s not only a poor choice for many, it’s an ineffective way to ensure that every person, every shift, enterprise-wide is equally trained to deliver quality service – the bedrock of an organization’s survival.

Today, we need to deliver training dynamically, with new information delivered to every single employee in the most efficient, effective way possible. We need to consider, as well, how our employees want to learn, and adapt our training to technology that is rapidly becoming the standard rather than the exception.

We need to grasp the vision for the future as we develop our programs today, or be left behind in a rapidly changing, complex economy.


[Interested in starting an online training program for your company? Contact an aQuire representative today to learn how you can get up to 6 months free when you start your program now.]