Feedback culture: Successful employee training is teamwork
The introduction of a new employee training program is usually associated with many hurdles and obstacles. However, a lively feedback culture during all phases of development and implementation can sustainably improve the acceptance and success of the training. A first-hand report.
Preparation and conception
Yesterday a meeting with the management, today a meeting with trainees, tomorrow a discussion with the eLearning editors from LinguaTV. Heike Streubel is integration officer at Gegenbauer and the driving force behind the development of suitable language training for foreign employees of the facility management provider. No easy task with around 20,000 employees from over 100 nations at more than 40 locations throughout Germany. To ensure that the new training is a success, Heike is in lively communication with all the stakeholders directly or indirectly involved in the project. What goals are to be achieved? How much working time should be available for the training? What expectations, but also fears, are there about the new eLearning program? The answers to these and similar questions turn out somewhat differently for each of her interlocutors. In the end, she won’t be able to please everyone. But the discussions help immensely to find a compromise that is acceptable to everyone.
Development and content implementation of the training
The concept is up and running: Blended learning with a language learning app and individual learning support (mobile coaching), as well as lessons in a virtual classroom for trainees with little knowledge of German. But the conversations are not diminishing. Now that it’s about the practical content of the training, Heike is in intensive exchange with the different learner groups within the company, but also with the eLearning editors of the language course provider LinguaTV. What specific content is needed in the area of cleaning services? Which in the area of order management? And how can these best be integrated into the new language training? Building on these conversations and the feedback of experienced employees, a multimedia vocabulary trainer is created, which covers the company-specific content that is genuinely relevant in the field of professional cleaning.
Gradual introduction and (re)evaluation
Before the new training is rolled out across Germany, it is first to be tested with a small pilot group. The individual test candidates were specifically selected by Heike Streubel and correspond in their composition to the great diversity within the staff. The aim is to answer a number of important questions. For example, how do older and less technology-savvy participants cope with the language app? How can learning support be further optimized? What technical and everyday obstacles hinder learning success? And what additional content or functions would the test candidates like to see? The feedback from the pilot group ultimately makes an important contribution to the development of an optimally suited training solution.
But even after the rollout, Heike Streubel continues to seek communication and regular exchange with everyone involved in the project. On the one hand, the efforts of the learners should be rewarded with sufficient recognition. On the other hand, feedback from employees can lead to further optimization of the training solutions. In the case of Gegenbauer, for example, the feedback from the participants resulted in the need for special telephone training with a technical focus in the area of order management, which could be offered to the relevant employees a short time later.
Conclusion
As the example of Gegenbauer company shows, a lively feedback culture can contribute significantly to the acceptance and success of employee training. In the best case, the exchange with the stakeholders involved should already begin in the early project development and then be continued throughout all phases of the training. The successfull language training at Gegenbauer has won the eLearning AWARD 2020.
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