Every year,companies spend a fortune to train people in their teams to ensure betterproductivity and increased profits. But, what if these training don't add valueto the company? And the major reason behind this issue is the memory of theemployees. While one is looking to build experts in their company, boostingemployee's memory is a key step that cannot be ignored.
The importanceof human memory cannot be emphasised enough and it might not be a fault of the employeesthat they are unable to retain the knowledge and skills that they areintroduced to. Over the years, the focus on ensuring a healthy mental space ofthe employees and its effect on their efficiency has been increased.
Memory plays afundamental role in life, reflecting the past as the past, and offering thepossibility of reusing all past and present experiences, as well as helping toensure continuity between what was and what was going to be, making it is acore part of the personal and professional growth.No one, today, has to bestuck with whatever memory capacity their brain was born with. The human braincan be trained and psychologists have over the years advocated various waysthrough which one can improve memory.
There can bevarious reasons leading to a weakened memory as the process of informationretention can be hampered at any step. This is a process where the brainencodes, stores, and retrieves information. The major factors that affect theknowledge and efficiency of the brain to retain the information it has receivedare content factors, environmental factors and subjective factors as explainedbelow:
Content Factors
The contentfactors include the volume of the content, degree of organisation of material,degree of familiarity, the structure and nature of the content. Content that issegregated in small bites is consumed quickly. It is essential for the ones whoare sharing information let's say in a big company meeting to make sure theyfollow it up with reminders that reassert a few core messages, a few smallbites at a time. That way information is digested and retained.
Context: A lotof information without context is a simple waste of money and energy. The staffshould be able to get challenged and not simply depend on wrote information,but on their ability to apply it in scenario-based challenges that reflect thereal-life context they'll be up against. Employees who show they can think incontext can apply new information when it's needed most adding to the company'svalue.
Encoding Factors
Encoding factorsare the factors that affect the encoding of information and how the informationcan be encoded better to ensure results. Environmental factors have not alwaysbeen considered important, but they are significant to the memorizationprocess. Factors including temperature, humidity, noise, affection,socio-emotional climate, etc., are just a few environmental factors that affectthe encoding of knowledge process. These factors can be considered to stimulateor inhibit the encoding process.
Subjectivefactors are elements such as the learner's state of rest or fatigue, health, orillness that can be induced with agents like motivation, interests, anddisposition, critical to the encoding process. Providing employees with a fairidea of how the training will benefit them allows them to feel motivated andencode better.
At Training
Motivational andfun: Keeping the training constantly interesting can lead the employees to bemore engaged in the training. One can ensure and build a friendly sense ofcompetition that can drive engagement with leaderboards, scoring and awards.These are the metrics of participation and follow-through to the end of theprogram.
Support needs tobe flexible and available to the employee at a time and place that works forthem. The companies can use various methods to ensure that the employee canretain and use the information he/she is provided in the training. Usingchallenge questions is one of the most common methods used by trainers to testthe employees.
After Training
Collect data,but use it wisely: Analysing the employees at the job and the data of how muchthey retain opens door to effective and personalized coaching. The knowledgeretention data can also help flag potential issues. Collecting important dataleverages opportunities for brands to figure out areas in which they arelacking or struggling. Companies are enabled to spot and quickly uncover apotentially damaging disconnect between sales and marketing and fix it bysimply by examining the data.
Conclusion:
Over the years, the companies have realised the role of brain science in changing behaviours that has a tremendous impact on urging teams forward. Organisation goals are achieved when they are in sync with personal goals and companies are well aware of this fact. Thus, they have been putting efforts towards achieving revenue growth and others via defining a direction and shaping others' behaviour to acquire it. When teams remember the parts of their training, they deliver better, eventually proving to be an asset both the company and themselves.
