Every year, billions of dollars are spent on professional training and development. Thousands of workshops and seminars are held for the training of employees. Yet, despite how interesting or engaging the speaker or the presentation is, how much do you think is retained?
The real answer is that less than 25% of information is retained by a person a day after the seminar, which is a shocking figure and the states clearly show that professional development programs are not being as efficient as they can be at helping employees due to this low retention rate of information. There are many employee training programs and methods out there that don’t take into account the human ability of retention when designing such programs and try to stuff as much information as they can into as little time as possible.
But luckily, there are many ways to improve the efficiency of these programs and also improve the retention rate of your employees and if you are looking for relevant HR services in Pakistan, then People is the service for you.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the myths that exist regarding memory retention.
“Forgetting is the failure of memory.”
This is utterly false. Just because someone forgets doesn’t mean that they have a bad memory. We live in a fast-paced world. The rate at which we are receiving the information has tempered with our ability to filter and retain the information that is truly relevant from the information that needs to be discarded. The ability is still there; it just needs refinement.
“If the information is relevant, people will remember it.”
While that is the case in some circumstances, it should be remembered that not everyone’s brain functions the same way, and everyone has a different threshold for what is considered relevant or irrelevant information. And that is without taking into consideration IQs, ages, delivery of information, and other factors.
So, let’s discuss how you can improve the retention rates of your employees.
Improving ROI
Simply completing the relevant training program is not enough for the employee. It is a harsh truth, but the best way to improve the ROI of the training and development programs you spend the organization’s funding on is to use repetition.
Practice makes perfect is the adage, and it applies to learning new skills and development programs. Learning retention statistics can be shocking at first sight, but when you put some context to them, it’s no wonder that they are so low.
Effortful Retrieval
Put simply; this means that you are giving your employees the chance to recall the information that they have learned, a process called ‘encoding’ where retrieval of information brings the important bits back to the forefront of the mind.
Repetition
After this, it’s a simple matter of practice and repetition. Just like a football player will practice the same pass a hundred times a day for hours on end, the same effort is required on the part of the employee. This effort has been shown to improve retention rates massively.
Forgetting Curve and Overcoming it With Boosts
Boosts are a form of re-engagement; boosts are used to highlight the most relevant parts of a training program. They tell the brain which information is really relevant and that it should be retained at a level of high priority.
These short boosts help with retention and also aid in effortful retrieval. So, when the time comes to apply what they have learned, they will refer to these boosts and a mental level and apply it to their work.
Retention rates might be bad, but improving them is not as enormous a task as it is made out to be. With sensible training practices, employees can be helped to retain relevant information so that their work efficiency is improved as much as possible.
People is the best HR company in Pakistan to refine these training and development processes. We also offer various other HR services that can help your organization. So, contact us today.
