Banish Boring Training!

Tips to banish boring training and elevate your delivery.

We've all been the victims of boring training!

Whether it's been scrolling through endless amounts of slides in an eLearning module or sitting in a room listening to someone hardly take a breath for 2 hours, while reading through endless amounts of overloaded slides, we've all been there!

The thing is, there is no excuse for poor training delivery with so much help and advice out there. Often it may be down to the training being a tick-box activity...compliance training anyone?! And it can also be due to the inexperience, lack of interest or lack of awareness of the trainer.

Research shows that when training is more engaging and interactive, the learner is likely to retain more of what they've learned

So, if you are tasked with delivering some training whether online or in person, what can you do to make sure your trainees don't leave feeling drained, and like they've wasted their time and learned nothing? Here's some tips to help you banish boring training:

1. Identify what your desired outcome is and who your audience are and build your content and delivery around those parameters. Relevance is also key! Where learners can see the connection between what they're about to learn and their job, and it's in a format that they are comfortable with, they are less likely to find it boring. This should form the basis of any training event.

2. When it's eLearning or online, requiring your trainees to sit and concentrate for an hour or more is ineffective. The human attention span is not compatible with this format! It will lead to the trainee just scrolling through, trying to get to the end as quick as possible, and not really engaging with the content. Instead, break the content down into more digestible sections. 10 minutes max per section is perfect! And, where possible, allow the trainee to undertake it at their own pace i.e. over a number of days as opposed to in one solid block. If this is not possible with a live event, make sure to schedule breaks.

3. If it's in person or live online training, planning and practise is essential. This is especially true, if you are not comfortable presenting. Make yourself familiar with the content, and plan out your timings by practising out loud and noting how long it takes. You need to also factor in any activities etc.. There is nothing worse for a trainee to expect to finish at a certain time, only for you to get to that time and need to squeeze in more content. This is a sure recipe for losing your trainee's attention.

4. Anticipate any questions or push back you might get, and have responses ready.  Make sure all your technology works beforehand, and remember, it's ok to have notes to refer to to keep you on track.

5. Change up the delivery format. If it's in person, include some breakouts at a flipchart, or group work and use storytelling and games. If it's online, using breakout rooms or showing videos can help keep it interesting. If it's eLearning, include some interactions, videos or case studies to diversify the content delivery.

6. Keep PowerPoint slides to a minimum, with less content per slide and fewer slides in general! They should only serve as a prompt or to show information that's better visually, for example a graph. Death by PowerPoint, is not something anyone wants!

7. Get help! This is where an Instructional Designer could provide support. They will essentially design the content to be delivered in the most effective way, that delivers on your objectives in a format that suits your audience.

There are of course, several ways in which you can reduce boredom during a training event. I'd love for you to share any tips you find useful in the comments!