TRAINING AND MOTIVATION – 9 WAYS TO USE TRAINING TO MOTIVATE WORKERS

As it is said in our last article which explained the various methods of training, the purpose of training is the overall development of both the employees and the organization at large. The purpose of training is that it would elicit career behaviours that would bring about the achievement of desired and specific goals, not only of the organization, but also, of the employees. 

Most often, organizations rarely consider the employee-trainee in the process of training design. This practice, will undoubtedly elicit, sometimes, undesirable behavioural outcomes from the trainees during and after the training. A training design that does not take the employee into consideration should be deemed to have failed, even before it started at all. This position is informed because training is expected to increase employee morale in order to engender a performance better than the one before training.

With the above position in mind therefore, organizations and their training handlers need to carry the intended “trainee” along right from the training design to the implementation. This practice will undoubtedly give the employee a sense of belonging and individuality that after all, they are being recognized either for their individual value and contribution to the organization, or at least as a person, and not being seen as a mere tool being used as the organization pleases.

Therefore, a training programme that would motivate workers must involve the following:

1.       Employee involvement: As posited above, the intending employee-trainee must be carried along in the training design in terms of all the whys of the training programmes.

2.       Clear goals and objectives: The goals and objectives, for the training must be made very clear to the employee. In fact, this brings about employee empowerment and a feeling of importance on the part of the employee-trainee.

3.       Simplicity: The materials for the training must be presented in a way that it will be easy for the trainee to easily understand and digest. If the training involves use of machines, the training handler must be able to simplify the operational processes for the trainee to facilitate motivation after the job.

4.       The training environment: Conducive training environment that allows for easy interaction amongst the trainees and the trainer is a must if training must elicit motivation. This is the edge that structured trainings have far and above unstructured training and training methods such as E-learning.

5.       Job enlargement: A training that will motivate an employee to perform should be outside, possibly, what the employee currently knows or does in his job at work. Such trainings must include new higher level responsibilities that will challenge the employee.

6       6.  Opportunity to grow: Motivational trainings should (not necessarily must) provide for the opportunity of career advancement at work. It should bring about employee-empowerment that will, for example, bring about a more contributory effort from the employee and possibly assign reporting staff members to the employee’s leadership or supervision.

7.       Practice: Even when the training will not lead to lateral promotion of the employee, if such employee is made to know that he/she will come back to train other staff, the motivation will be there to be dedicated to the training programme because employee training other employees attain certain level of fulfillment and are hopeful of their career advancement with time. Such practice opportunity also come with some aura of importance on the part of the employee. Another dimension to the practice is that a trained employee must be given the opportunity to practice what he’s bee trained for. This will not only motivate the trained employee, but also, his/her co-staff.

 8.       Unfamiliar roles: For motivational purposes, apart from expanding the job content, a training that will motivate could also involve cross-training in other roles and responsibilities. The aim of this is to enrich the employee’s organizational knowledge and the knowledge and understanding of what the others are doing elsewhere in the organization. Sometimes, such an employee could be drafted to fill a lacuna in such areas when such arises.

9.       Employee empowerment: A training that will bring about employee motivation will, after the training, ensure that the employee assumes a self-manage state whereby he’s able to make some important decisions for the organization. As well, it should ensure that the employee is able to contribute more to important departmental and company-wide decisions and planning as well as provide more access to privileged information within the organization.

Using training in these ways will surely ensure that trained workers enjoy their works more and even not only be ready to go on the training, but will be ready to give more to the organization.