5 Hacks to Reach Everyone that Needs to be Trained

So you ran a great course. Participant evaluations were off the chart. You felt like it may have made a difference for the lucky few… but now what?

Building a strong training system is about more than just delivering a high quality event in isolation.
It’s about finding ways to keep all of your target audience engaged and continually updated amidst their busy lives, for as long as your organization needs them to be skills-ready.

It’s about sustaining your contact with larger numbers of people, for longer.

Here are some hacks to enhancing your reach as a training manager:

1. Check that your training system fits the 4:1 rule. A good training pathway involves a mix of formats to keep your participants engaged throughout the training year. For my partners, I typically recommend a ratio of 4 virtual engagements for every onsite training they offer. There can be variations to this of course, but if your strategy is more like 1:1 then it’s almost certain your trainees are growing rust right now, instead of growing their skill sets.
2. Give more serious thought to the hybrid. Recent studies show that 70% of regular users view hybrid training as the “best of all worlds.” Yet in practice less than 10% of training managers actually incorporate hybrid methods into their planning. Hybrid training can be a low cost way to reach greater numbers of participants without compromising quality, and if you haven’t given this serious thought before, it’s probably time to take a closer look at which variants could add value for you. For example, could you gather small groups of trainees at onsite venues that are local to them (it might be different cities or countries, whichever applies) and let them interact virtually with each other during the programme? We call this the Virtual Teams model, and it’s a powerful tool for supporting localization. See this blog for the pros and cons of different hybrid variants in training exercises https://bit.ly/3F773AP
3. Create a LinkedIn group for your network of trainees. The days of investing hours of your time building a complex Community of Practice platform are thankfully well behind us. Use a free technology to create instant communications that will accelerate informal learning exchange amongst your participants. For example, spend five minutes branding a group on LinkedIn and have your new trainees add their profile as they exit the induction phase, then use the group to post updates and articles of relevance throughout the year.
4. Run a training podcast. Podcasting for remote teams is another accessible technology that can help dramatically reach and engage your people in between formal training events. Podcasting rates highly on the impact scale and especially high for getting learners to pay attention for a prolonged period of time. As a training manager, you can leverage this to connect with your participants as they drive home or fly between countries. Try setting up a podcast featuring bi-monthly interviews with trainees who have something valuable for the wider group, be it their experience of a recent emergency, a field deployment, or an important event they attended.
5. Set up a mentoring tree. This can be a great option if you have a leadership cadre within your trainee group. Set the task for each leader to establish a mentoring connection with three more junior participants. Create a simple database for your mentors to track their interactions and give them a list of fun activities to choose from that reinforce key learning in your training programmes.​

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