How Leaders Can Encourage a Commitment to Training

In recent weeks we’ve blogged about the different ways in which employee training can benefit a company—through increased retention, through team cohesion, and more. But of course, we’ve left room for an important question: Supposing your company decides to invest in team training, how do you get your employees on board?

Often, it won’t be as much of an uphill climb as you might anticipate. Your team members want you to invest in them. They want to learn and to develop in their professional skills. They want you to confirm for them that you plan on keeping them on your team for the long haul. In many workplaces, team members really want training, and there’s not much you’ll have to do to talk them into it.

Still, you may have some skeptics and some holdouts—and if that’s the case, then it becomes important for your company’s leadership to cultivate real excitement for the training process.

A few ways to do so:

Lead by example. Attend some training seminars or webinars yourself, then report back to your team on what you learned and how you think it will improve your on-the-job performance.

Get them involved in selecting the training courses. Ask your team members which areas they would most like to receive training in. You don’t necessarily have to hold a democratic vote, but do at least get employees involved in the conversation.

Articulate your goals. What do you hope to get out of the training? How will it improve your team, and your individual team members? Clarify your goals before the training begins.

Ensure accountability. Are you investing in customer service training for your team? Then when the training is over, you should expect to see some improvements in customer service. Make it clear to your team that you expect them to learn, retain, and implement some new skills!

At the end of the day, you can’t force anyone to be enthusiastic about training—but again: Training is something that benefits your team members, and most of them are going to know it. Articulating your expectations and modeling your own enthusiasm should push everyone in the right direction.