Do HR folks train for education or information?

Yesterday, I was speaking with a friend about training.  Our conversation began about content delivery and how boring and static HR training seems to be.  Though he knew it from experience, it perplexed him as to why this was the case.  See, he is a phenomenal trainer.  He is very thorough and thoughtful in his content development and uses a variety of media in delivery.  He has shared with me some of the training he has created and delivered and I must admit, upon hearing about the topics, I was lukewarm.  Then he blew me away with his delivery and his ability to maintain a high level of engagement throughout the course.  So, you can see why, he struggled to understand why someone training HR policies and procedures would not strive to be engaging.  After all, aren't we the ones that guide our business partners to specific actions that generate high employee engagement?

I shared with him why I believe HR training does not seem to have much of a pulse.  It comes down to objective.  Typically, when one is training individuals on HR policies and procedures, the objective is to familiarize the audience with the content and give them resources to navigate through the issue.  The result: more lecture, less learning.

I too, am guilty of delivering training by showing a sterile presentation deck.  At times, I've linked to active intranet pages to show participants where to find the related information.  If I'm really feeling frisky, I'll throw in a survey, to make sure the participants are paying attention, or at least to interrupt their multitasking.  But as we were speaking, I had to ask, how have I contributed to bland, tasteless training and what could I have done differently.  Here are a few suggestions, courtesy of my trainer friend:

1. Make it interactive.  Even discussions about understanding ADA or local wage and hour laws can be interesting, dare I say, even exciting, if you bring people into the picture.
2. Reach outside the content area to connect everyday occurrences to the topic.  This may be easier said than done, but you can bet that participants will remember the content if you can connect it to something that seems unrelated and remote.
3. Check for learning.  When asked whether they understand, most participants will say they understand or just nod and agree.  The best way to know that there is understanding is to provide quizzes and tests throughout the course.  Remember our focus should be on learning not just the sharing of information.  

If HR folks do this in every training opportunity,we will become effective trainers yet!

Until next time...