How can you train your team during busy periods?
Maximise productivity and train your team effectively, even in busiest times, with these key tips and tricks.
Training is a pivotal part of staff wellbeing, retention and performance, however, it can be difficult to find the time to train staff during busy periods. Here are some ways to continue developing your staff in busy season:
1. Encourage the prioritisation of personal development
Although it might slow down employees in the short term, this will ultimately improve their productivity and efficiency. There are often unknown processes or technologies that can significantly fast track easy tasks, however often times people become stuck in a routine or process that is outdated. It is important to ensure your team is constantly looking to develop in areas that are directly related to their output.
According to business.gov.au, “the key to retaining good staff is to make sure that you advance and encourage their professional development and training”.
2. Utilise self-serve learning resources that are available online
Self-serve training is essentially using the resources available online, whether it be videos, webinars or articles, that allow you to develop your skills or capacity in a professional arena. Caseware provide a number of online resources including monthly knowledge webinars, FAQs, whitepaper downloads and the more niche resources i.e. Getting started with Caseware Connector series.
This is a great way to maximise output and minimise the amount of time spent on understanding. A pro tip for these videos and webinar recordings; utilise the 1.5x speed option to get all of the same information even faster. On our site, this option can be found by clicking the three dots in the bottom right hand corner of the video, and then selecting playback speed.
3. Allocate time in your calendar… and stick to it!
In today’s day and age, a modern professional deals with hundreds of distractions each day. It is important to ensure that key tasks such as training are scheduled with the same importance of that such as a client meeting. As outlined by Anthony Tjan in the Harvard Business Review, it can be easy to schedule a time for thinking, training or meeting prep, however it is becoming increasingly difficult for professionals to stick to that time.
Distractions come in the forms of emails, phone calls, texts, apple watch notifications, dogs barking, etc. If you wouldn’t leave a client meeting to deal with the distraction at hand, you shouldn’t diminish your allocated training time either!
