4 Training Pitfalls to Avoid

4 Training Pitfalls to Avoid

Every year, corporations spend billions on training. These funds are meant to help companies improve operations, drive company growth, and increase revenue, but all too often employees aren’t given the right tools to adequately retain and employ training knowledge. We’ve gathered a list of life science training pitfalls and their solutions.

Focusing on Individual Optimization

A priority for trainers is to train individuals to think clearly about and incorporate information into everyday decision making. But some research suggest that while the individual is incredibly important to the processes, training should also focus on optimizing organization-wide practices, too. Through multiple studies spanning decades, researchers were able to see when and where supervisors regressed into pre-training habits even if they believed that training was powerful and engaging. Powerful materials may not be enough to ensure that operations are running smoothly and that your team is consistently thinking about training in relation to their daily processes. One way to combat this challenge is to set attainable, training-driven goals for all supervisors, so that each department is geared for success. Enterprise-wide training goals can ensure that employees stay up-to-date throughout different departments and may ensure that trainees thoroughly understand materials in relation to their role and the company’s role as a whole.

Choosing Between Training Methods

When we interviewed Steven Sitek of Novartis Pharmaceuticals last month, one of strongest tips was to offer different training avenues through technology and one-on-one learning. Why? Because when training large groups, there’s bound to be a difference in experience, learning style, and, yes, age does play a factor. As more Millennials and Gen-Xers make up the workforce, trainers are beginning to decide between technology-focused training and traditional one-on-one strategies. Though many trainees may be inclined to use technology, make the availability of expert intervention known and continuously offer one-on-one contact. The availability of choice ensures that trainees will receive information at their own pace. Pace is crucial in training, so encouraging trainees to understand the full extent of training materials and information at their own rate may help your audience digest and implement post-training resolutions.

Ignoring Career Development

Most employees want some kind of training. It helps optimize processes and strengthens skills, helping people achieve personal and professional career goals. To further engage trainees, content should be poised at strengthening career paths and creating pertinent career-focused goals and achievements. This transforms training from required annual learning to career development opportunity. A study by the Institute for Work-Based Learning which studied 4300 workers revealed that a large majority of these workers would take a course outside of work to become more valuable in the workplace.

Training can be that opportunity. Training offers development in the form of important interactions and day-to-day responsibilities. Strengthening understanding of information in turn builds confidence in employees which streamlines important procedures.

Not Tracking Post-Training Success

Immediate post-training periods may be the most crucial to making training stick. So, the sooner trainers are able to begin implementing post-training metrics, the earlier they’ll be able to test effectiveness and overall information retention. By incorporating training reinforcements, trainers will be able to boost information retention and encourage post-training successful behaviors. A simple and immediate solution to this may be to send follow-up questions about training materials or the training sessions one to two weeks post-training.   Developing training methods encourages information retention and goal-oriented post-training success. Changes to global regulations have forced the life science industry to look towards better, comprehensive training strategies, and the evolution of training methodologies is one.  To increase success, Q1 Productions offers a range of conferences and webinar which support trainers including: the 7th Annual Pharmaceutical Sales Training Conference, the 10th Anniversary Medical Device & Diagnostics Train the Trainer Summit, and the 2nd Annual Life Science Compliance Training Conference.