How can you ensure that participants apply what they have learned in your career development workshop?

The greatest challenge is always to get started. Hence, the workshops that have the most significant impact on participants are those that help them to get started right in the workshop! And that means hands-on practice. Once they get over the inertia and awkwardness and realise that there are many others in the same shoes at the workshop, they tend to open up, try and get their feet wet. Oftentimes, the workshop will give them the community they need to check back in after implementation so they will keep applying what they've learnt.

The use of short form video is also a great way to engage a group. As well as YouTube and other resources, I have found it very useful to film top performers at work, or in a 1-2-1. This content can be created at low cost and held in an LMS. With the advent of Custom GPT this will add real time responses to people learning their jobs.

From my experience, to ensure participants apply what they have learned in our career development workshop, it is essential to provide action plans and follow-up activities. These activities can help participants bridge the gap between theory and practice, ensuring they apply their knowledge in real-world situations. Examples of follow-up activities include setting SMART goals, identifying steps and resources required for their career development, assigning tasks or projects that integrate workshop skills, and providing support, such as coaching or mentoring. By implementing these strategies, we can empower participants to take ownership of their learning and apply their newfound skills in the workplace.

Application is key. Learning isn't about consuming information it is about taking what you learned and putting it into practice. In today's fast-paced world, we, as humans, will very quickly revert to our old habits, even those that were not benefiting us at all. In order to create change, we need to create a practice. When we do training we create succinct and specific action plans as takeaways. We also have everyone commit, out loud, to one specific action and then to pick an accountability partner they trust to support them. When we work with organizations, we encourage longer engagements instead of one-off workshops so we can work with employees on implementation and action.

"I Hear and I Forget, I See and I Remember, I Do and I Understand" is absolutely relevant when learning. The more practice employees do the more relevant it becomes. Practice during the session through activities, simulation, role plays helps participants learn better. Upon completion of the workshop, additional post work and follow-up is extremely helpful to ensure learning is taken back and applied to work.

Always provide tools that they can take back to their work. As part of the workshop, create opportunities for them to come up with hypothetical scenarios and use the tools you have provided for those scenarios. That way, they gain theoretical and practical knowledge and can easily replicate them post-workshop.