In Training: The Art of Motivation

September 30, 2008  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on October 2008 The classic film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” contains one of my all-time favorite lines: “Anyone…? Anyone…?” The struggling school teacher searching for the attention of his class states a question and then asks for a response. He was desperately hoping that someone in his class might actually be absorbing his lecture. Unfortunately for him, the students were not paying attention. All too often it is the same in training situations. Students find themselves dreaming about shopping, football or anything else that lets them escape from the pain of learning.

While studying instructional design in graduate school, my favorite professor taught us that most teachers make the same fatal error—they fail to engage the student in learning. In other words, they lecture, and no one listens. Furthermore, the professor taught us that the teacher of the inattentive classroom should accept full blame.

My high school chemistry teacher understood the need for our attention, but his execution was a bit off the mark. He would play his trumpet and then run around the classroom placing handfuls of popcorn on each student’s desk. He got our attention, but we were still not engaged in the learning process.

Here are four effective and simple things to motivate associates to receive training and stay engaged.

1. Incentivize your associates: Give your associates reasons to participate in the training. Many retailers pay associates a small bonus for completing a training course. Others hold sales contests open only to associates who have completed required training. Either of these can be useful in gaining the attention of the associate. Other retailers won’t let associates onto the floor until training is complete. When you consider that every dollar generated by a store has to pass through a sales associate’s hands, making them wait until they demonstrate competence seems like a great plan.

2. Use interactive training: Make sure the training package your store uses is interactive. Don’t be snookered into thinking that pushing the play/pause button on the DVD player qualifies as “interactive.” You need your associates to think. You need them to do things, to engage their minds. Practice makes perfect because it forces us to stop sleeping through training and do something with the content. That is interactivity.

3. Stay relevant: Make sure training is absolutely relevant to the behaviors you want your associates to acquire. Remember the kid in school who always asked, “Will that be on the test?” His was the best question ever asked. No one wants to spend time learning material they won’t really need. If the training clearly helps them make more sales, they’ll be motivated.

4. Track the progress: Your associates will do better if they know you are tracking their progress. Use a training program that includes a management reporting system. The reporting system will make it easy for you to track your associates’ progress and make corrections when necessary.

If you don’t have the attention of your associates, they won’t learn to do their jobs. Learning to sell furniture is necessary for your associates to be successful. Since your success is dependent upon their success, it goes without saying that taking the right steps to motivate your associates in their training makes a lot of sense.