Professional development is a necessity for every company that strives towards expansion. If members of one team do not look for the means to narrow their expertise and become renewed professionals in their business niche, they will stagnate. Stagnation in today’s market is unacceptable; everything about modern business is developing fast and it’s obligatory to go with the flow if success is on your mind.
However, HR departments are applying educational methods which belong in the past, so their effort to make an improvement is actually a waste of time for them and their team as well. Today, we have a lot more knowledge about how the human brain works and what it needs in order to adopt new information. Therefore, it’s necessary for HR departments worldwide to abandon old school techniques, starting with the following seven.
Playing Outdated Videos
Gathering a group of adults which are professionals or on their way to get there in a conference room for a purpose to play them an outdated video which is about business methods that are not even being used anymore is obviously ridiculous.
You can be positive that no one will pay attention and that everyone will be wondering how old is the video they are forced to watch because it isn’t relevant in today’s time. Something like this will have a result which is the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. You’ll be actually wasting everyone’s time that they could use to do some actual work.
Holding Non-Interactive Classes
As we mentioned in the beginning, traditional educational methods which involve a teacher figure and a student-like group don’t really work if everything a lecturer does is hand out pieces of information. The attention span of the group listening will be practically non-existent.
The human mind needs to be challenged, which is why it’s absolutely necessary for classes to be interactive. If you invest your effort into fashioning a class or a line of them, do actual planning, and create entertaining but informative material which will involve your group throughout, you will manage to pass on long-term knowledge.
Handing Out Dry Manuals
If there’s anything worse than dull classes out there, that’s dry textual content that goes on for hundreds of pages. Considering the fact that there are four types of learners – visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic – chances are that you will get through to 20% of your group; of course, if they do manage to maintain their attention.
Instead of asking your employees to go back to high school and learn, you should challenge them. For example, VR technology is finally happening, and investing in creating a whole educational program based on this technology will most definitely pay off. Practice is the best possible way to learn, which is why you should focus on exactly that.
Using Papers
Using physical documents and papers, in general, isn’t a practical solution when compared to the other options – going digital. Not only that using papers isn’t environmentally friendly, but it’s not efficient enough and it takes up space, which is unattractive and time-consuming to get around.
A simple solution to this problem is a cloud-based platform that can’t crash, so you should definitely consider transferring to online HR software. A tool such as this one will make significant changes around your office; you will be able to notice a serious boost of efficiency really fast.
Blindly Sticking to Tradition
Every company has its story; this is what makes brands different. Knowing your origins and being respectful towards the tradition that made it possible for an unknown business to become a renewed brand is a big deal. However, it’s one thing to show respect and it’s something completely different to stay in the past.
Many companies are refusing to change their ways because it’s not in accordance with their tradition. As time passes, things change and something that used to be a powerful method fifty years ago might not be that powerful today. I’m not suggesting to get rid of everything and throw away all principles, but it is imperative to divide pieces of tradition which are still functioning from those that belong in a museum.
Evaluating Theoretical Knowledge
Test results are outdated and overrated. The fact that a person does well on a test doesn’t imply that they will be able to pass with flying colors and do good in practice as well. And, on the other hand, if a person doesn’t do well on a test, it doesn’t mean that they don’t possess the knowledge because many people can’t handle this type of pressure.
Therefore, it’s more than necessary to surpass these methods already and go from evaluating theoretical knowledge to keeping track of one’s progress. Actual results which are measurable and valuable are what counts. So, instead of creating different kind of tests, HR departments need to invest their effort into developing methods which evaluate performance.
Summing up
Interestingly, it’s very simple to point out flaws in training methods and, although everyone knows they are there, they still seem to be an important component in most forms of learning. It’s necessary to make these changes; providing employees with improved material that focuses on practice and which is up to date for starters will show very effective results. This is an investment that will undoubtedly pay off.
