7 Tips to Improve Employee Induction Training Materials

1. Use more Visuals - 83% of human learning occurs visually.  Use lots of photos, videos, diagrams and colour to present training information.  Avoid relying heavily on text based training.  After all, we only recall 10% of what we read compared to 50% for what we both see and hear.

2. Tell Stories - During training, tell stories of exemplary staff behaviour that typify the type of action you want staff to do.  Stories help people make emotional connections.

3. Lead by Values - Let staff/contractors know what your values are.   Using values, empowers workers to make decisions based on company values.  Difficult for staff to make the right decisions if they only have rules to follow.

4. Positivise it - Remove negative language.  Tell people how you want them to behave, rather than telling them what you don't want.  Remove words such as 'no', 'can't and 'don't'.

5. Involve senior management - Senior management play an integral leadership role in establishing culture.  Effective leadership whether it be concerning safety, a new sales method or business structure must be led from the top.  They must be involved in the induction process.

6. Reduce complication - Get rid of long sentences, jargon and big words in training materials.  Keep it short and tweet.

'Words are how we think, story is about how we link’ Christina Baldwin

7. Ask more why questions - Teach people why they need to do something, so they can always figure out the how.  Otherwise, company processes keep getting perpetuated without people ever questioning why they do something.