8 factors that make business training effective

8 factors that make business training effective

“Confidence comes from discipline and training” – Robert Kiyosaki

Training molds a person involved in business in a way that market or economic situations expects him or her to. Training is often an underrated segment of business, but it paves the way for a better future for business entrepreneurs. In this practical field of work, only education and knowledge is not enough—one needs the extra push of training to be able to apply everything learned to real situations and yield successful results.

As essential as training is, it needs to follow certain criteria to make it an effective one. Here are 8 factors that make business training effective.

• Specialisation of the training: The training must be focussed on certain problems and issues at hand and not be a vague or generic one. Every trainee is more or less acquainted with the holistic concept of business, but the trainer’s job is to make the trainees efficient in the specific areas they need to work on: communication, sales, management, human relations, it differs from training to training. But the activities must revolve around honing this particular skill. This will help the trainees develop the particular skills required in that specific field.


• Interactive training: Business trainings must be interactive. Teaching that involves one-sided lecturing does not work anymore and is also not followed, even in business schools or undergrad institutions. The trainer needs to make sure that the trainees are able to understand and cope with the training. The trainer should check from time to time by having open discussions, FAQ sessions, and so on. It will create a free environment and also help clear doubts and misconceptions.


• Peer interaction: As much as it is necessary for the trainees and trainers to interact, communication between peers or the ones getting trained is equally important. Their conversations sometimes clarify doubts and issues better than what the training imparts, and it also creates a friendly atmosphere in the training environment. Peer interaction helps to develop further soft skills of the trainee, which is crucial in the field of business.


• Interesting activities: Once again, drab lectures are a big no-no. Since business is a real-world phenomenon (perhaps one of the too real things out there), business training should also be equally practical. Different case studies, evaluating real scenarios, playing team games, debates – all these will spark the interest in the trainee to embrace the real spirit of business.


• Encouraging them to read: Nothing compares to reading good books. The trainees must be encouraged and given ample opportunity to read up on his or her specialization or just about business in general. Books, e-books, audio books, journals, business newspapers – sources are in plenty. All that a trainee needs to do is pick up the habit of reading and learn what the books and papers say about the real business world.


• Motivation and incentive: Trainees must have certain motivations and incentives that will make the training worthwhile for them. Usually, the main purpose of business training is to make people more acquainted with the nuances of business and make them more involved in the process. But over and above that, the training should open up new scopes and creative opportunities and create a platform for career goal achievement for trainees to properly embrace what is being taught.


• In-class and out-of-class training: Along with classroom training, there should be on-the-job training as well. The training should be such that the trainees should be able to apply the concepts in practical situations in the real world. In this manner, they can fully comprehend how the imparted training is useful in the practical field and how exactly it works. A certain activity will yield a different result for different people, depending a lot on their personality and psychology. The trainees should be given that opportunity to utilize their business training appropriately.


• The learning environment: A training environment needs to be flexible so that trainees are comfortable adjusting and readjusting depending on the training and what exactly is being asked of them. The room needs to be friendly, spacious, and lively and have a professional but spirited vibe about it. If it is too formal, the training will be drab and boring, and if it is too casual, the training will go off the track.

The most important part of training is obviously the training objective which needs to be spot on for the business training to be successful. No other factor alone can determine its effectiveness, but all of the objectives need to be combined in the right measure to get the right result.