Common Training Mistakes You’re Making (and How to Fix Them)

Are you making these rookie mistakes? You’re not alone! You don’t have to be a complete novice to make these mistakes, as most people find themselves slipping in the following areas:

Mistake #1:

Ghosting your learners

Remember that time you launched a training course and then never mentioned it again? Your audience knew it wasn’t important when there was no follow-up.

Quick Fix:

Create some post-training activities or a check-in process to see how they’re applying what they’ve learned.

Mistake #2:

Using old school methods for modern problems

It might seem easier to design a training the way you’ve been doing it for the past 10+ years, but chances are it’s not going to resonate with your learners. If a training topic doesn’t require a long-form, drawn out traditional training course, then keep it simple with a micro dose of learning instead.

Quick Fix:

Use microlearning, job aids, texting, quizzes, polls, short-form videos — think of how people actually learn these days (and not what may have worked in the ancient past).

Mistake #3:

Keeping outdated training alive

If a training module is old, contains outdated or inaccurate info, why is it still on your learning platform? Your learners know how to spot an old training from a mile away — old branding or logos, a date on the title page from 6 years ago, etc. These are great ways to kill your credibility.

Quick Fix:

Schedule time to audit your training courses - and actually stick to your audit schedule.

Mistake #4:

No learning paths

Do your learners ask questions like “what do I do next?” or “how will I know what my training is like after new hire?” That’s because you’re not showing them the road they’re on. New hires aren’t the only ones that need to see where they’re going.

Quick Fix:

Create learning levels, where each set of achievements rewards your learners with something new: a new designation (‘expert’ or ‘mentor’), a certification, or new professional development opportunities. Then, make sure they know what these levels and criteria look like with a learning map.

Mistake #5:

Giving new hires a checklist

You might be thinking “Isn’t a checklist a good thing?”. Yes, a checklist can be super helpful, especially for new hires. But not when this is the only instruction given to a newbie. And, more often than not, that checklist is outdated. New employees need more than just being handed a list.

Quick Fix:

Link your new hire up with someone who can take them under their wing. Make sure this person has mentor qualities and would enjoy taking part in helping your new employee.

Mistake #6:

Not evaluating training

How will you know if a training worked if you don’t evaluate it? Most of us launch a training program and think the job is done. Training isn’t a ‘set it & forget it’ thing. You’ve got to see what’s resonating with your audience, so it can inform what your future trainings look like.

Quick Fix:

Close the loop by evaluating the training’s impact and performance. Remember those learning objectives and business outcomes you set in the beginning? Start by seeing if those goals happened. Evaluating is a long game, but some quick tasks can be made along the way:

• Immediate evaluation can be as simple as positive feedback from your employees.

• 30-90 days after an initiative, you can check in with employees via fun pop quizzes or challenges to see if knowledge sticks.

• Months down the road, you can start looking at the overall impact to the business. Make sure that enough time has passed to make a clear correlation between talent initiatives and improved business results.

Mistake #7:

Treating everything as urgent

If you work in corporate training, you’ll know this one well. Labeling “training emergencies” is laughable. Training is there to prepare your people for something new or developing them to be better at the job. It’s not as serious as some will inevitably treat it. And — if you treat everything as urgent, what actually IS urgent?

Quick Fix:

Have some off-the-shelf learning ready to go at any moment. If you have a library of just in time resources for each big topic area (think job aids, short-form videos, etc.) then it can also be used to fill the “urgent” need when it arises.

Mistake #8:

Over-producing your training

Repeat after me: Not every training needs to be long-form and traditional.

In fact, think about how most people learn these days. Is it through classroom training? Is it through 30-minute eLearnings? Absolutely not. We all learn through short bursts of information, yet training is almost always seriously lacking in short-form assets. Not everything needs to be an overproduced training module that goes through 3 months of development and 5 rounds of approvals.

Quick Fix:

Start creating short-form content to fill the gaps between the larger trainings. Look to viral content for inspiration.

Mistake #9:

Creating everything from scratch

Training timelines are notoriously long. We take the path of most resistance by starting from nothing, relying on unavailable subject matter experts, and taking 3-6 months to launch a course. In reality, most information can be published pretty quickly through short-form content.

Quick Fix:

Use low-fidelity videos shot on your phone, job aids, newsletters, etc. Most of these can be created in a matter of a couple days. Wouldn’t you rather have a more nimble training library ready to go?

Mistake #10:

Throwing a bunch of training at learners

Training can be overwhelming. That’s because we tend to assign a list of large scale long-form training to our learners — instead of letting them passively learn through lighter, easier content.

Quick Fix:

Have off-the-shelf content ready to go, and start transition some material from curriculum to content.

Mistake #11:

Not marketing your courses

You’re launching a course, but where’s the hype? Take a note from marketers and treat training like it’s the coolest product you’ve ever seen.

Quick Fix:

Film a short-form video with some fun aspects of what makes the training worth your learners’ time. Make it fun. No one likes boring training.

Mistake #12:

Solving the wrong problem or not asking

Most training professionals skip this part. “What are we solving?” should be the very first question asked. If there’s nothing to be solved for, a training might not be needed — and certainly not a traditional long-form training. Maybe a communication or short-form piece of content would be better suited.

Quick Fix:

Scope your training projects by asking the right questions from the beginning. The most important question being “What are we solving?”. Then, make sure the training actually solves it.

Mistake #13:

Launching the same stuff over & over

Does all your training look alike? I’m not talking about branding elements, I mean is your training redundant? If you’re nodding ‘YES’, then there’s a few ways to go about fixing this.

Quick Fix:

Use a blend of long-form and short-form content to get some variety in your learning plans. Curate content from outside your organization if it’s a topic that’s not specific to your brand.

Mistake #14:

Dismissing Social Media

Social Media is a goldmine for informational content! It’s becoming the ONE place people go to learn information on their own. We should all be taking notes from social media in this regard.

Quick Fix:

Look to social media for inspiration on creating bingeworthy, viral content that sticks.

Related: 10 Social Media Tricks to Copy for Your Training Content

With every piece of learning content, you should ask yourself whether you’d want to consume that type of content. I think most of us would say ‘no’ to many of our current practices if we were being honest.

Are you making these common mistakes? Start applying these quick fixes and you’ll see big changes!

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