Mandatory Doesn’t Have to Mean Mundane

What is the first image that comes to mind when I ask you to think about Mandatory Training?

Something like this?

You are not alone.

Mandatory training has developed a bad reputation for being boring, content-heavy and sometimes a complete waste of time or tick box exercise that we have to go through to show compliance.  Sadly, some of the facilitators think this as well as the delegates.

But it doesn’t have to be that way…

Our Learning & Development Manager, Tracey Palmer-Hole is the most positive and passionate person I have ever met when it comes to mandatory training and she has been the inspiration behind us writing a blog on how to make mandatory training engaging, memorable and – ultimately – lead to the desired actions by employees.

So, what do we mean by ‘mandatory training’?

Generally, mandatory training refers to the compulsory training that is required for employees to carry out their duties safely and effectively. Many organisations deliver mandatory training as part of their routine induction training, then as required thereafter. Some people (including us) incorporate statutory training (i.e. that is required by law) into their understanding of mandatory training.   So, if you look at it this way, mandatory training is simply all training employees MUST attend.  The most well-known topics include:

• Health and Safety
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
• New starter induction
• Regulatory Training / Updates
• New Policies / Procedures

This definition raises the first challenge for learning facilitators: their delegates have not chosen to be there; some may not want to be there or may not see the relevance to their role.  This is extremely likely to affect their engagement and therefore participation in the training.

So, let’s first take a look at some of the typical problems we experience with mandatory training and we will then introduce you to our 7 Pearls of Wisdom for Making Mandatory Memorable.

I love this quote (and at the same time hate that this is still true in many organisations) from Ross Page in ‘Most Trainers and Training Sessions are Boring’:

“Grey room, black type, white background, 550 PowerPoint slides per hour, some bozo beating his gums out the front while the class sleeps and that most dreadful and horrific of all training room afflictions: Flat Bum (from 2 hours of chair based, brain numbing, spirit sapping, soul draining facilitator tongue flap!)”

Now, I recognise that this is the worst-case scenario and not all mandatory training is that bad (thank goodness!), but it does rather demonstrate what I call the 7 Deadly Sins of Mandatory Training:

• Sin 1: It must be classroom based
• Sin 2: It must be delivered by an expert
• Sin 3: It must be very content-heavy
• Sin 4: It must have a lot of slides
• Sin 5: Little effort is made to engage delegates
• Sin 6: There is little movement or activity
• Sin 7: Trainers don’t enjoy doing it either and are not positive

A Learning & Remembering study by Bottom Line Performance in 2014 found that 24% of respondents cited ‘content overload’ as a huge problem and 38% struggled with retention or transfer of learning.  When you consider how many of these sins you have probably experienced this is hardly surprising.

It’s All About Accelerated Learning

So, we have created 7 Pearls of Wisdom that will help you to ‘Make Mandatory Memorable’.  The 7 Pearls are based on many of the principles of Accelerated Learning – and in turn our own Fusion® Learning methodology.

Accelerated Learning is a huge body of work that aims to help people learn quicker and remember longer.  As detailed in our 2015 purple paper – Can Learning Really Be Accelerated by Krystyna Gadd, we said “The effectiveness of accelerated learning has been objectively measured,” and Don Schuster, Professor of Psychology at Iowa State University, was able to record that “it produces at least 300% improvement in the speed and effectiveness of learning”.

So, we think this is a pretty good place to start when looking to ‘make mandatory memorable’.  We have written a Purple Paper to provide more detail on the 7 Pearls of Wisdom and how you can practically use them in your mandatory training.  In case you are wondering, a purple paper is similar to a white paper, except it is a lot more ‘colourful’ and is written by practitioners for practitioners.  Whilst we present theory to back up each of the pearls our emphasis is on providing real examples that can be easily put into practice.

If you want to read / download our full purple paper, please click here.

If you want a quick preview, you will find below a visual summary of our 7 Pearls of Wisdom for Making Mandatory Memorable, followed by a short summary of each:

•  Pearl 1: Make it Memorable – do something unusual or imaginative to raise interest, particularly at the start and end (a big bang using music, visual effects, drama or comedy); use associations / mnemonics; create a different / positive learning environment with coloured posters and a more informal layout.
• Pearl 2:  Make it Social (and Fun!) – we learn better when we collaborate with others so find as many ways as possible for interaction in pairs, trios and small groups.  Include some kind of icebreaker to get them talking immediately and then problem-solving / discussion groups to work on the theory and coaching pairs / trios for reflection / relating theory back to their own situations.
• Pearl 3: Make it Real / Relevant– we learn in context, so demonstrate a theory using a real-life situation (using actors is great for this); if you are talking about a machine / process actually go to the machine and see it in action; create realistic case studies / scenarios that learners can use to apply the theory – or better still get them to use their own situations or even go out into their workplace during the session.
• Pearl 4:  Make it Active – inactivity causes our brains to go on autopilot / activity sends more oxygen to the brain thus improving cognitive ability.  Try to include some form of movement every 20 minutes – it doesn’t have to be very long and can be combined with other activities, such as: breathing, stretching and reflecting; standing at / moving between flipcharts on walls rather than tables; walking review and action planning; or scavenger hunt quiz.
• Pearl 5: Make it Positive – your own attitude to mandatory training will affect what you do and in turn the attitudes and behaviours of your learners.   So, take some time to reconnect to your values; challenge your negative attitudes with positive affirmations; then send delegates fun / visual invites (maybe including a video); create a positive / welcoming environment; greet everyone with a smile and start conversations; make regular workshops exciting for you too, by changing thing up a bit and including more interactive exercises.
• Pearl 6:  Make it Yours – to complete transfer of learning, people need to DO something with the content.  Get them to make public commitments to a colleague / the group, ask for updates as part of follow up or better still get their line manager involved pre and post any learning intervention using a simple template.
• Pearl 7:  Make it Quick – people are busy, so bite-sized learning is key – particularly for a session they have not chosen to attend.   Ensure you reduce the content as well as the length of a session including only what learners ‘need to know’ to achieve your learning objectives and put ‘nice to know’ information elsewhere.   Also split each session into a series of shorter 20-30 minute learning bursts for each aspect of a topic that include a short theory input, an activity and reflection / follow up.

Summary and Call to Action

So, some training might be mandatory, but I truly believe that it doesn’t have to be mundane.  Use our 7 Pearls of Wisdom for Making Mandatory Memorable and see how much more engaged you and your learners are, how much more they learn and how much more they actually do with what they have learned back in the workplace.

Much of what I have covered here is actually relevant to any learning intervention and links to the principles of our Fusion® Learning methodology and accelerated learning generally.  It is not intended as everything you need to know to design and deliver a mandatory training session (there are many other things to consider, such as ‘starting with the end in mind’ / setting the right learning objectives).  However, these are the key factors that will help to avoid the seven deadly sins of mandatory training and move your sessions from this:

To this:

Or even this:

Call to Action

So I’d like to finish by setting you a challenge that requires you to make a commitment and take action – and an even bigger commitment from me (and my team at Pearlcatchers) to support you in ‘making it happen’.

I want you all to share (as publicly as possible) your best examples of mandatory training sessions (or individual exercises) and 1-3 commitments to improve your sessions using one or more of our pearls of wisdom.

You can use email, Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook or even all of them if you want to really get the message out there (our links are below).  Then let us know over the coming weeks and months what happened when you completed your actions – and any challenges you are facing along the way.  We will then commit to i) collating all your great examples / experiences and publishing these for everyone to share and ii) keeping in touch to support you as you ‘make it happen’.

To explain why we want to do this seemingly crazy and time-consuming thing, it might be worth giving you a little background.

At Pearlcatchers we are on a mission to transform training into learning – and mandatory training seems a great place to start.

For the past 10 years, we have been running the Experiential Learning Zone at the World of Learning Exhibition – which has involved us researching topics of interest to L&D professionals and facilitating bite-sized sessions, as well as 121 coaching and support.

In 2013, following extensive research, we created Fusion® Learning  – our game-changing methodology to transform training into learning.   We launched Fusion® Learning at the World of Learning, with amazing feedback, such as “It is an innovative and fresh way to approaching the whole concept of learning in a holistic way” – Samsung.

This was followed in 2014 by our Learning Facilitator Development Framework with the three skill sets (practitioner, strategist and enabler) necessary to truly create a learning culture in your organisation.

This year we are launching the Fusion Hub – as we believe that the way to thrive and survive in the new 70:20:10 world of L&D is to create a community of like-minded professionals who provide support and challenge, share issues, successes and best practice with the ultimate aim of transforming training into learning.  Click here to find out some of the sessions we will be running in the Experiential Learning Zone this year.

So, in the spirit of the 7 Pearls of Wisdom, take a couple of minutes now to think about one thing that you are going to do in the next three days to start to make your mandatory training more memorable, then write it down and share your commitment with as many people as possible.  To share with us on social media and get this trending you can use any or all of the following:

Pearlcatchers – Twitter  

Pearlcatchers – Facebook

Connect with me on LinkedIn  and share your commitment with me personally or make a comment on the conversation I have started, “Mandatory doesn’t have to be Mundane”.

Email me at sharon@pearlcatchers and I will send you a reminder in a few weeks to see how you are doing – or better still arrange for a meeting where we can talk more about how we can support you in making your mandatory training memorable.

I look forward to hearing all your great ideas and to hopefully meeting some of you at the World of Learning in October.  Together we can change the reputation of mandatory training and make it memorable rather than mundane.