Why Employees Don't Care About Your Training

Many training programs often fall short because they lack one crucial element: emotion.

Think about the last time you were introduced to somebody and you immediately forgot their name. Part of the reason you don't remember is because it's just data. There’s no emotional association. There’s no level of importance assigned to it.

Our brains are inundated with info that it constantly filters - allowing only what it deems significant to be committed to memory. A strong emotional tie to someone helps you remember details about them.

Similarly, effective training should contain some emotional stakes. Not just in the content itself, but also how to you speak to or address the learners. Why should they care about this? What makes it relevant to their specific situation, job, or position within the company?

And before anyone kind of jumps in says this is a lot of new age hogwash, remember that 95% of our decisions daily are performed subconsciously, driven by emotions. We only later rationalize them, telling ourselves the story that we are consciously in control. To disregard this fundamental aspect of human nature is not only ignorant but self-defeating, and it can undermine your business goals.

"Sounds great, Richard. I agree with you. What's the next step?" The next step is integrating an emotional focus into your discovery session when designing new training. Most learning designers already have some form of a discovery template, which typically includes questions like:

• Why does this training matter?
• What's the urgency behind needing this training?
• Why are employees not currently doing the thing we want them to do?
• What’s the one takeaway learners need to walk away with?

You may use the ABCD approach:

A)???? Who is the Audience?

B)???? What is the desired Behavior?

C)???? What are the ideal Conditions both to learn and perform these behaviors/tasks?

D)???? To what Degree of mastery must learners demonstrate?

These are all great, but I would add one question:

E)???? What Emotion do you want your learner to feel at the end of your training?

In your discovery session with stakeholders, you'll likely get different answers about what those emotion should be. That’s okay and part of the work. The crucial step is to refine those answers into the perfect level of specificity. Don't skimp on this. Pull out a thesaurus and workshop the right word until you get agreement from all members.

For example, don’t settle for angry when indignant is more appropriate. Trade out inspired for galvanized. And so on.

Once you’ve reconciled the target emotion according to majority vote, every aspect of your training should elicit some degree of that feeling within your learners. For example, if indignant is a target emotion, you may tell stories of injustice or include language that positions learners as defenders against unnecessary suffering.

Storytelling is one of the most potent modalities to trigger emotions of all kinds. Stories excel at setting the context and tone at the start of your training, and they have the power to captivate your audience. You'll notice your learners leaning in, both figuratively and literally, when they are hooked by a compelling story. Don't underestimate the power of starting your training off with a story.

Storytelling is hard work, but it gets better with practice. If you want more practice, consider enrolling in one of our workshops or online courses where we teach you the fundamentals to story design for learning.

But this goes beyond stories you use to illustrate points, and can even be used in course descriptions and objectives. How can you add emotions to features of your learning, such as case studies, scenarios, test questions, learning objectives, discussion boards, activities, reflective exercises, and more?

Emotions are fundamental to our human experience, and they influence how we learn, remember, and apply information. By shifting your focus to include an emotional aspect to your training, you'll create more effective and impactful learning experiences that lead to improved employee performance, skill acquisition, and organizational success.