Stretching Your Training “Meals” With Wraps

Will Kenny, Best Training Practices

Go to just about any kind of restaurant these days and you’ll find a “wrap” on the menu. Much less common even a decade ago, all kinds of entrees are rolled into a tortilla now (or sometimes, in my part of the country, into lefse!).

The ingredients—what is packed into the wrap—are often the same as they were before wraps became popular—a stir fry, perhaps, that might have already been on the menu. But the simple addition of that wrap changes how you eat something you have had many times before. It changes the experience.

For the restaurant, since wraps are so popular now, a very inexpensive addition to an existing dish, the tortilla, may make it possible to charge more for the same entree (or even for a smaller portion of the original entree). They can get a better outcome from the same, or perhaps reduced, resources.

In the training business, unfortunately, there is a huge bias toward just plopping the entrée—a course or event—in front of employees without any “wrap,” without very much to hold it in place or to make it easier for the trainees to consume. What holds together the content of training, so that it truly has an impact on how employees do their jobs, on whether they work in alignment with the leadership’s strategic goals, is what comes before and after the core event.

A little lead-in, and even better, a good bit of follow-up can make your training meals more nutritious, helping them “stick to the ribs” so that employees actually use what they have learned back at their desks. The good news is that you can enhance the impact of what you offer without requesting additional funds or other resources.

It just takes a few more contacts with individuals registered for your programs. Before they get to the heart of your event—online course, webinar, meeting or conference, seminar, or self-study packet—send them a reminder about it, not just the “when and where,” but a little bit of “why.” Send them another message with suggestions for questions to think about before beginning the training, or “case studies” they might like to consider from their own experience, on the chosen topic.

After they have completed the training, follow-up can make all the difference. While your trainees are working away at learning the material, whether on their own or in a live class, their in-baskets and to-do lists are piling up. When they get back to their regular posts, catching up with all of that obliterates any thought of applying what they just learned.

So give them a nudge, once a week for a few weeks, say. Remind them of some key points, the most crucial themes, from your training event. Suggest simple ways to apply a few of the ideas you covered. It may not seem like much, but returning their focus to what they learned from the training, once they go back to their original environment, can make an enormous difference to whether they really use what you tell them.

All this can be done very effectively through existing channels, with e-mails, voicemails or interoffice mail. You can even write the lead-in and follow-up messages in advance, and then just have administrative staff distribute them around the schedule for your event. (You can experience a simulation of that approach here.The effort and cost are minimal, but the payoff is substantial.

In the end, a tortilla doesn’t cost much, but it transforms the meal, how it is presented, and how you consume it. A little “wrap” of contact, a few nudges before and after your training event, can do wonders to stretch your training budget for maximum impact on employee performance.