There are many ways to approach a training session, some of them better than others. It can be hard to find those perfect activities that will be both fun and productive for your colleagues. We’ve collected 5 training session ideas that will be both appreciated and lead to new insights. Let’s get started!
Hackathon
Hosting a hackathon is a real favourite of ours at VenueScanner. The rules are also super simple, just do the following steps and watch your employees get creative:
- Split everyone into equally big teams.
Important to think about here is to make groups that are crossfunctional. Let people work with someone from a different team that they’ve never worked with before to get some new inspiration. Plan the teams ahead of time and really make sure you think about who would be collaborating well with who and how to mix it up.
- Present a problem.
Present a problem that’s a real-life example from your business. This could be anything you can think of from How do we increase revenue in the coming quarter? to What should our new logo look like?. The perfect problem is one that you have thought about for a long time and got stuck on. You’ll be surprised by how some new angles work their magic.
- Give the teams an hour (or whatever time you see fit) to come up with the best solution.
Time to bring out everyone’s competitive side! Make sure you encourage creative new solutions and point out that there’s no right or wrong answer. The more out there the better. All teams should create a way to present the task, the more visual and comprehensive the better.
- Gather and let the teams present.
This is of course the most fun part. You’ll be surprised when you see your team come to life and thrive with some new fresh ideas. Make sure to take notes because some of these ideas might be the solution you’ve been looking for. Decide beforehand what you’re going to judge the performance of and write down points during the presentations.
- Pick a winner!
Time to decide who won the Hackathon! Make sure you get a real good price for the winner of this great challenge. This is your chance to show how much you appreciate your team getting creative.
Brainstorms and Discussions
This might sound a bit basic but it’s always a great idea to get people talking. Make sure you structure your session with some really good questions and proper moderation.
A common problem in team discussions and brainstorming is that a few do most of the talking and you’re losing out on the thoughts and ideas from the rest of your team. Those few might have some great ideas but the best discussions let everyone be heard. By moderating properly you’ll avoid this issue. A useful trick for those uncomfortable speaking in a big group is to take them aside afterwards and ask what they thought about the discussion.
Let an Expert Do the Talking
The whole idea of a training session is to upskill your employees. Don’t let this opportunity go wasted by only leveraging the expertise you already have. Why not let an expert do things for you? This could be in the form of a lecture or a workshop.
By bringing some new energy into the group you’ll usually trigger new ideas and creativity. Having an expert help with your training session will also help your team see things from a new perspective. It’s usually a great experience for a manager to see their employees come to life in a new environment and learn things from an expert.
When choosing who to bring in for a training session, pick someone with expertise within the area you’re looking to upskill in and also make sure they have experience with conducting training. There are many amazing trainers out there that will give you what you need; choose wisely.
Do a Poll
A training session is not only a chance for your employees to learn, it’s also a great opportunity for you to gain new knowledge and insights. Take this opportunity to listen to what your employees have to say by letting them give their views on the company.
Another idea is to let them do a personality test and follow up with discussions about it. This can be a great way to understand your team better and encourage them to understand themselves in different work-related situations. Just be warry – personality tests are best for analysing groups and shouldn’t be used to draw conclusions about individuals.
Role-play
Practising sales calls can be a great use of role-playing as a tool. There are also many other professions that might make good use of stepping into the shoes of the customers or understanding their own behaviours. Anyone who meets customers will appreciate this but it can also be a great way to gain deeper understanding of communication issues between colleagues. It might sound a bit odd but a good role-play just might get you and the team out of that rut you’ve been dying to get out of for ages.
