How to Cook Up Tasty Training for Your Team

Andrea Wright, CPA Partner, Johnson Lambert LLP
Trends in Accounting, Auditing, and Consulting

Think about the best learning experience you’ve ever had. Was it an elementary school teacher patiently teaching you long division? What about a college professor challenging you to take a new business perspective? Or how about that simple, last-minute cooking tip that made your dish delish? I use this very prompt to kick off our learning and development discussion at Johnson Lambert’s orientation each year. The excitement, reflection, and energy that ensues always amazes me, but it’s also a reminder that all too often we leave all those feelings off the table when it comes to professional development. It’s time to change that.

Here’s my recipe for cooking up a winning formula for tasty training and professional development.

1. BE ENGAGING

We’ve all experienced “death by PowerPoint.” Put the wordy PowerPoints and dry presentations we’ve all been guilty of relying on away. We know that learners retain more information the more engaged they are. To spice things up, try these techniques instead:

• Discuss, don’t dictate: Rather than dictating what needs to be known about a topic, have your team tell you what they don’t know! Many webinar platforms offer breakout groups, whiteboards, or other collaboration tools to enhance discussion (and you can use these in a live setting, too)—use them to pinpoint your team’s real information needs on a topic and create a learning experience that’s collaborative and unique to them.
• Show, don’t tell: Do you want your new hires to really learn how to audit cash? Give them a made-up bank reconciliation and confirmation to see how they go about doing it. Better yet, have learners bring real-life examples from their projects to work through for some tried-and-true hands-on training that they won’t forget.
• Teach, don’t preach: Learning experts tell us that the best way to deeply learn something is to teach it. Have your team members explore new, relevant topics and then teach them back to their peers. Of course, this isn’t meant to be a lecture—have your “teacher” practice their engagement techniques at the same time.

These first few methods will increase your learners’ engagement and accommodate their different learning styles. Some people are visual learners, others are auditory. Many people learn best by doing. By incorporating all types of learning into your training, you’ll give everyone an equal chance to consume new knowledge. What’s more, you can accommodate any seen or unseen disabilities in the classroom by creating an inclusive learning environment. Perhaps that’s as simple as turning on closed captions in a webinar or providing materials early to give attendees time to digest the content. The ultimate aim is to foster learning experiences where everyone’s tastes are satisfied, and everyone feels included and celebrated.

2. BE TIMELY

We were all inherently curious children once, happy to learn why the sky is blue–not so much as adults! We want to see the impact of training on our job responsibilities or skills right away. Am I right? To better appease your team members’ appetites, try these tips:

• Seek input: Before scheduling a training session, send out a survey asking what the attendees hope to learn and what they already know about the topic. This saves you from making assumptions and allows you to tailor the content to their needs.
• Sell it: Kick off each training session by getting your team’s attention. Answer the question every attendee has on their mind: “What’s in it for me?” Describe how their roles or responsibilities will be affected by the training. This is also an opportunity to provide transparency for any firmwide initiatives that may be prompting the training.
• Be relevant: I can’t stress enough how important it is to craft your training to your organization’s initiatives. Are you teaching your team how to do something they won’t be assigned to do for months? That’s a recipe for disaster—reschedule it. Training needs to align with your team’s current focus. Another common training mistake is teaching the entire team about something only certain team members need to know. Make sure you have the right people taking the right training at the right time.

3. BE EDUCATIONAL

This should go without saying, but your team needs to actually learn something from training. So, why does this need its own point? Too often, we don’t achieve this simple goal. Subject matter experts get so excited to share their knowledge that they share everything they know, all while losing the flavor of the core message. Serve up training like this:

• Know your recipe for success: Hold a conversation with the instructor, subject matter expert, and other stakeholders ahead of the training. Is success defined by all the attendees passing a test, or is the goal simply to see results through the team’s ongoing work product? Is there an organizational goal that’s trying to be achieved with this training, and is it measurable? Define your terms early to craft and serve content that meets those goals.
• Present the menu: Starting each session by stating what your team will consume and consequently be able to do at the end of the lesson can be a powerful attention getter—if presented properly. Use specific action verbs to state the goals, takeaways, and expectations: You won’t just learn something; you’ll define or analyze, etc. The more complex the training, the more ambitious the learning objectives should be.
• Less is more: Stay focused on the most important topics and trim the fat. Try following the 80/20 rule: If something is true 80% of the time, teach it that way. If people have questions about the other 20%, they’ll ask!
• Respect the limits: As much as we’d like training to satiate all our business challenges, rarely is it ever a silver bullet. Be realistic about what you can achieve, and remember to work within the limits of your organization and your team.

Following this fresh approach, you should be able to whip up a winning formula for your training programs that changes the perception about continuing profession education in your organization and positions you as an employer of choice. Blended well, your training menu will serve to foster an environment of creativity, curiosity, and critical thinking; show you’re invested in the ongoing development of your team; and fulfill each person’s unique taste for knowledge and advancement within your organization and the profession.