3 Ways to Educate Your Employees

Part 2 of 3 in the Protecting Your Castle series.

It is foolish to ignore training. No leader wants an untrained army protecting their castle. After reading this blog, take a few minutes to consider whether your employees truly understand the importance of internal controls. Have they been properly trained?

Imagine there is a large, powerful army amassing outside your castle, and they are planning to attack. This army is known to have looted, pillaged and conquered many other castles. They are battle-hardened and confident. However, your castle walls are stronger than most and your army has successfully defended the castle for many years. Your army is well-trained and armed with powerful swords and bows.

Furthermore, because you wanted to be protected against even the toughest armies, you recently purchased the latest and greatest, most cutting-edge weapons available on the market. The new weapons arrived just before this army began to gather outside your walls.

You’re feeling good about the new weapons and your army’s ability to protect the castle—until you realize that your soldiers haven’t been properly trained to use the new weapons. Is it possible to train them before the attack? Will this time spent training take away from other necessary preparations? What will it take to train your army?

Your army is properly trained to use the traditional weapons, and you are confident they will be able to defend the walls effectively, but there is no guarantee of victory. The new weapons would surely guarantee a victory if the soldiers were properly trained to use them. Since they are not, the victory is again uncertain. As a leader, you must decide.

Just like the leader without a properly trained army, most organizations do not properly train employees on the subject of internal controls, which are the walls of the organization. If your employees aren’t properly trained to use the available weapons, the internal controls will not be effective. Your walls will topple, and your organization’s treasures will be in jeopardy.

Developing and implementing a plan to train employees is imperative. Consider these tips when you plan your training program:

1. Everyone needs a purpose. Each training session’s purpose should tie into the overall purpose of the plan, and ultimately, it should tie into the organization’s mission. If it doesn’t, the individuals will not understand the importance of the training. Every individual’s role is important, but if they don’t understand it, they will not effectively perform their duties when they leave the training room.
2. The content of each session should be relevant to the participants, which means it should be specific to the audience and their roles—NOT generic. The sessions should also include real-world examples and interactive exercises to reinforce key learning objectives.
3. Timing is also an important component of any training program. If the training is too soon, individuals will not retain the information; if it is too late, there could be numerous negative outcomes. As an example, employees could implement incorrectly and create bad habits that are hard to break. Timing also relates to the length and frequency of training sessions. Sessions should not be too long as to give more information than employees can absorb or they will become disengaged. And, follow-up training sessions can be important in providing a platform for team collaboration and can keep everyone on the same page.

Stay tuned for next week’s blog to learn more about engaging your army to understand why protecting the walls is important.

If you ever have an idea for a future blog or a question about a published blog, please contact me with your thoughts. I would love to hear from you.