In the era of digitalization, we shall ask ourselves: is it worth investing money in digital training for employees?
In order to respond to this question, we should first measure the execution of the current training methods. Most companies train their employees using one of the following methods:
– lecture/presentation method, is the same method used in schools. This method has the lowest retention of all teaching methods.
– the ” learning by doing and ask the expert when you have questions” method
– they pay an external company to teach the employees, and those use the same lecture/presentation method
What should we measure here?
Should we concentrate on measuring what is done properly?
Or on what isn’t done properly?
The initial tendency is to concentrate on what is done properly because this is what people like. But in order to trigger reactions that generate fast improvement, we have to concentrate on what is not done properly.
What is NOT done properly in training?
And how does video training for employees fix the problems?
I have categorized the things that are not done properly into 5 categories and described them in detail in the article linked.
In this one, I will make an even simpler categorization, for remembering easier. The things that are not done properly to support the learning process according to the 4 learning pillars, in the lecture/presentation type of training are only two:
- The things that we should do but we don’t
- And those that we should NOT do but nevertheless we do
Only two categories and zero overlaps.
1. What should we do in employees’ training and we are not doing?
1.1. Trainings don’t include time to apply the information
“Mastery in any field, from cooking to chess to brain surgery, is a gradual accretion of knowledge, conceptual understanding, judgment and skill. … Mastery requires both the possession of ready knowledge and the conceptual understanding of how to use it.” (Brown, Roediger III, McDaniel – make it stick).
So, learning is gradual and involves understanding and skill. Nobody becomes an expert overnight and also not over ONE training! You cannot form a skill without practice. And while practicing a new skill, time is needed. The exercises during training are just simple examples. They do not cover the whole complexity of all situations that appear in a real project.
In employees’ training, employees apply the knowledge in their real tasks. Sometimes months pass by until employees repeat the same task. And in such cases, they have to go back to the theory, to the explanation, to the ” how-to”, to the rules.
Those guys take much more time to apply the knowledge of boiling the rice, than engineers applying the Functional Safety principles in their training!
Functional Safety training done by a professional, takes 4 days in a row. This time is only for presenting the information, with no real practice for trainees in their projects.
1.2. Trainings are not repeated
If repetition is the mother of learning why not give your employees the possibility to repeat a training?
Just like in the example above with the Functional Safety training. It is crucial that the engineer can come back to watch every single step of this process when he is applying it in a real project.
How much will he remember from the training months later?
“By day 2, if you have done nothing with the information you learned in that lecture, didn’t think about it again, read it again, etc. you will have lost 50%-80% of what you learned“(University of Waterloo: Curve of Forgetting)
Recording video training for employees is the only method that offers the flexibility to attend training when and as often as the employees need/want.
1.3. Trainings are not “scheduled” to meet employees’ learning needs
In the face-to-face training system, the employees don’t learn when they have the need, meaning when they have to solve a task. Because the trainings are scheduled in advance and take place when the trainer has the time for teaching. And not when the employee has the need.
The employees don’t sit idle and wait for the trainings. They have tasks assigned and are working at. If employees have questions regarding “how to solve that”, they ask a colleague and finish the task. They can’t wait for the task until next month when the trainer has time to show them how to draw a sequence diagram. By the time the trainer teaches that information the task is done, the interest isn’t there anymore.
With dedicated video training for employees, those have the information available when they need to apply. They don’t have to disturb a colleague from work or wait unproductive until the training takes place.
1.4. Trainings are not employees’ first concern
In order to enhance full absorption and retention of the presented information, the employee has to have the training as the first concern. He has to have great motivation to learn that subject.
“Motivation is essential: we learn well only if we have a clear goal and we fully commit to reach it” (Stanislas Dehaene – How We Learn)
How do you motivate your employees to learn and how do you make the training employees’ first concern?
Very simple! You assign him a task and the associated video trainning. The video training will present information related to his current task, which he has to solve now, not next month. Most of the time, the employee has paused his current task to attend a training, that has not much to do with his task. In this case, the employee’s first concern is how he solves his task.
The tasks and the trainings are not synchronized. It is impossible to synchronize them when the trainings are scheduled based on the trainer’s availability and not the employee’s tasks. With video training for employees that explains the steps related to their current task, those can work and learn at the same time. And while the employees are learning, they are also being productive. His motivation to finish his task in time will make the training/learning his number one priority.
1.5. Trainings don’t include time for information consolidation
Memory consolidation is the process of strengthening the mental representation of what was learned in order to form long-term memory. Consolidation and transition of the information to long-term memory occur over a period of time.
“New learning is labile: its meaning is not fully formed and therefore is easily altered. In consolidation, the brain reorganizes and stabilizes the memory traces. This occurs several hours or longer and involves deep processing of the new material” (Brown, Roediger III, McDaniel – “make it stick. The Science of Successful Learning”)
With video training, the employees can learn for as long as they have learning attention and then pause the video and dedicate time for practice or consolidation. Consolidation could be done either by applying the information or by reflecting upon it or engaging in discussions with colleagues or experts on that subject.
1.6. Trainings for staff re-qualification are missing
Offer the employee the chance to learn subjects he is interested in. Even if those subjects are not directly related to his current position. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, every human has the need for growth and self-actualization. This article explains how those needs translate for employees and companies.
You can choose if your employees will watch some funny videos on Youtube or will watch some videos relevant to their self-development: communication, management, decision-making, etc. Many employees want to change their position but remain in the same company. Many companies have to re-qualify their employees because they have to close departments but don’t want to lose the employees.
Having recorded on videos the basic knowledge and work steps for all the jobs/activities in your company, your employees will be able to learn new skills and change their position if they want, or if you need to requalify them. Video training for employees will help you decrease your employee turnover costs.
“Employee turnover costs about 20 percent of all manpower expense. But that’s only the visible cost of turnover. There is an ugly invisible cost that can be far worse” (Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister – Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams)
1.7. Lecture trainings have the lowest retention rate
The learning pyramid shows how important it is for memorization to choose the right “presentation” method for teaching. By using video training for employees you increase their memory retention from 5% to 20%.
| Retention rate | Learning activity before test of knowledge |
|---|---|
| 90% | Teach someone else/use immediately. |
| 75% | Practice what one learned. |
| 50% | Engage in a group discussion. |
| 30% | Watch a demonstration. |
| 20% | Watch audiovisual. |
| 10% | Read. |
| 5% | Listen to a lecture. |
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_pyramid
This video explains why images as such a great impact on the brain.
1.8. Expertise and knowledge are not saved in the company
In case you have an internal employee that runs the training for the new employees, you have to be aware that the knowledge does not belong to the company but to himself. And you have to admit that with the variety of jobs and career possibilities nowadays, it is as easy to change the company as to change clothes. Chances are great that your trainers/experts will want to work for another company, either for its name or for their ego. Also big and well-known companies lose employees. Take a look at LinkedIn peoples’ titles: ex-Google, ex-Tesla, ex-Amazon, ex-Facebook etc.
Recorded the knowledge of your experts and trainers on video and create your own digital knowledge archive. Having the knowledge in the archive the company can build automatically a new army of experts.
For corporates, it is cheaper to record the knowledge and work procedures once and distribute the videos to all your locations than to train separately each individual at each location. Here is a video presenting the cost advantages in this case.
2. What we should NOT do in employees’ training but nevertheless, we do
2.1. Information overload.
The time dedicated to a learning session shall not be longer than the attention span. Attention span is the amount of time spent concentrating on a task before becoming distracted.
How long is the attention span?
- Selective sustained attention, also known as focused attention, lasts something between 20 to 40 minutes for adults. All the information that is presented in hours-long training is kind of lost.
Short-term memory could hold 7 items (plus-minus 2) according to George Millar in 1956. More recent research suggests that nowadays people are capable of storing even less information. Approximately 4 items of information in short-term memory.
- There’s an old quote, one attributed to the American businessman Phil Crosby, that goes: “No one can remember more than three points.” ( The 20-Minute Rule for Great Public Speaking — On Attention Spans and Keeping Focus )
With video training, employees can adapt the learning time to each one’s attention span. Videos can be paused, rewind, and replay.
2.2. Mixing employees with different levels of knowledge in the same training
Usually, companies run the onboarding trainings cyclic, for a bunch of new employees at the same time. It does not matter if the employees come directly from the university or have 5 years of experience in 3 different companies. They sit all together and are taught the same information at the same impersonal pace of the trainer.
If you don’t create different trainings for different levels of expertise, the employees with experience will get bored soon. On the other side, if the information is not detailed enough to cover the beginners’ needs, those will not build understanding.
Also in the case of video trainings the information has to be recorded by levels of expertise. But then each employee spends time with the videos appropriated for his level of expertise. If an expert needs some basic knowledge from the beginner video trainings, he can rewind the video and stop where the desired information is located.
2.3. Learning outside the state of mind for learning
Are you always in the mood for learning? I bet you are not.
Some people are at their sharpest in the morning, some in the evening. If you try to learn when you are not in the mood for learning you will find yourself pretty often daydreaming.
“Different parts of the brain may be ready to learn at different times” (How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School).
It is hard to eat when you are not hungry. Imagine how hard it is to learn when you are not in the state of mind for learning.
Having the employees’ training recorded on video, the employees can learn when they are in the mood for learning. Or when they need the knowledge to solve a task.
2.4. Using the expert as a trainer/teacher
The expert in your team is not necessarily the best teacher unless he is trained as a teacher. For 2 main reasons:
1.Having extensive technical knowledge of a subject does not mean that the person also has teaching skills.
“I am deeply convinced that one cannot properly teach without possessing, implicitly or explicitly, a mental model of what is going on in the minds of the learners” (Stanislas Dehaene – How we learn)
Besides, when the expert is teaching, who is doing his job?
2.A second problem with having an expert in the role of the trainer is the curse of knowledge.
The curse of knowledge is what psychologists call the tendency to underestimate how long it will take another person to learn something new. Or to perform a task that the teacher/trainer already masters.
“Teachers often suffer this illusion – the calculus instructor who finds calculus so easy that she can no longer place herself in the shoes of the student who is just starting out and struggling with the subject” (Brown, Roediger III, McDaniel – make it stick)
2.5. Passively sitting and listening for hours
“Converting results from diverse fields suggest that a passive organism learns little or nothing.” (Stanislas Dehaene – How We Learn)
You will say that video trainings don’t offer employees any engagement with the trainer. This is right! But the video presentation is only the 1.st pillar of learning: information acquisition. And the problems with asking questions during the information acquisition are the following:
1. Some people don’t ask questions at all when hearing a topic for the first time because are ashamed or afraid to “ask stupid” questions. When I was holding my trainings, I experienced that those being new to the topic were afraid to ask questions during the presentation. So they came to me during the breaks and asked me in private the questions they had. I myself, have experienced the same feelings of being afraid to ask when I was a trainee.
Because of this generic fear, the engagement in discussions with the trainer (or with the colleague) will take place when the trainee has learned the topic. When he knows the terminology and maybe has already tried something practical.
2. Those that put many questions, are asking exactly what the trainer is going to explain next.
The real questions and the real need for questions appear after the employees have applied the material in their projects. When they tried the theory and measured unexpected results or mistakes. Then the trainer/the expert is needed! So it makes more sense to make himself available for dedicated discussion sessions after the employees have acquired the information from the videos.
