The Top 5 Totally Terrifying Training Mistakes

Litmos Lenny HalloweenHappy Halloween! And Feliz Día de los Muertos to our friends in Mexico and Latin America! Before you get decked out in full zombie costume to take the kids trick or treating, or to take yourself to a super spooky party, please take a few bone-chilling minutes to make sure you’re not scaring your learners away from your corporate training program.

Yikes! One more thing before we tear into the terrors of the list. I almost forgot to warn you that it would be a hair-raising fright to forget to register for Litmos LIVE, the world’s largest corporate learning virtual summit, November 7-8, 2018. So please, spare yourself the agony and sign up now!

The Top Five Totally Terrifying Training Mistakes:

  1. Training in the Void: Noooo….!!! L&D should never exist in a vacuum. If you don’t currently have cross-functional buy-in and top-down executive support, your learning programs may end up in the graveyard. It’s time to stop acting like a ghost and make yourself more visible to the broader organization. You know how important learning is to the success of your people and your company. Howl your value like a werewolf at the moon! If you want some help learning how to prove and communicate the value of training, please watch this webinar on shifting the paradigm for L&D success.
  2. Admin Agony: Administering your LMS shouldn’t feel like a endless trip through Hades. If it does, give yourself permission to finally exit the underworld and see the light of Litmos! Modern LMS technology should be nothing short of easy — to admin, to navigate, to use, and to integrate with other systems. And, gone are the days of implementations from hell! Think minutes not months in that category, and in the areas of course creation, course and user management, and reporting, as well. In this day and age, even the least technical users should be able to become LMS wizards.
  3. Creaky, Cobweb-covered Courses. Eeeeek! Don’t you dare make your learners click through another dusty, old set of slides! There’s no need anymore to inflict “death by slideshow,” considering all of the highly engaging, video-based, fun, off-the-shelf options, like those offered via Litmos Heroes. If you’re a Litmos customer, you have access to a huge, ever-growing library of SCORM learning modules and blended resources that you can plug right into the LMS. You don’t need to worry about updating outdated courses; it’s done automatically. Plus, new modules are added all the time, so you can continually grow the course library that you offer your employees, customers, and partners.
  4. Eerily Low Engagement: Your learners deserve an experience that doesn’t bore them to death. Whether you consider adding more video-based courses, mobile-first, micro-learning in the flow of work, or gamifying your program, there are plenty of ways to increase learner engagement. Of course, make sure the content is relevant and regularly reinforced, which will revive retention rates as well. Remember, learners forget a spine-chilling percentage of what they’re taught in a very short period of time — roughly 70% within the first 24 hours according to Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve. So, create continuous learning programs that reinforce education via a blended learning model, across modalities and activities, such as social learning and coaching.
  5. Fear of Feedback. If you’re not providing full-circle learning that asks learners for feedback, be warned! It’s more critical than ever to ask learners what type of training they need and how they’d like it delivered (e.g. video, mobile, social, gamified, etc.). How can you know if you’re delivering value unless you ask? Knowing the answers has a profound effect on the success of your business, as you train people toward greater performance, productivity, and company commitment. The ability to learn and grow on the job has become a powerful employee recruitment and retention tool, so be sure to survey learners about whether you’re offering what they need to continue to be successful, or they’re likely to float off to another employer like ghosts to a haunted house.

Have a very happy, fun, and safe Halloween!!!