Make Staff Training Fun!

This year, 2 Minute Trainer is taking a different approach. The aQuire team will be sharing concrete ideas to help you put into practice some of the concepts and theories we’ve been talking about over the past year.

This month, we’re kicking off the new series with some ideas to help you build FUN into your classroom-based training.

Even though you are using aQuire’s online training program for basic staff training, I hope you’re at least holding periodic team building meetings – celebrating birthdays, updating staff on policy or staffing changes, and reinforcing the idea that TEAM is what gets the work done.

So here are a couple of ideas to help you make those team meetings – or classroom trainings – FUN!

Staff Training is one of those “catch-22” type things: we have to do it, but it often isn’t very much fun. Consider the primary goals of staff training: to impart additional knowledge and to affect outcome or behavior based on that increased knowledge.

You can, on a good day, achieve those goals by lecturing to staff – maybe. But think how much more interesting it would be to develop a format that allowed staff to laugh together, to share their own thoughts, ideas and perspectives, and to form a more cohesive team bond with co-workers – all while learning new information.

If staff find learning fun, chances are you’ll see a greater change in outcome or behavior based on the learning, and that’s the ultimate goal of staff training.

Create Your Own Learning Game

Check out some well-known resources for developing team-building and learning games, such as John Newstrom and Edward Scannell’s book, The Big Book of Team Building Games (McGram-Hill, 1998). Then, follow some simple rules, and you’ll soon see staff having fun and learning at the same time:

• Develop questions that elicit learning information – on whatever topic you’re teaching
• Design questions to have no right or wrong answers – just “your” answer
• Allow for personal or team competition – or do it just for fun
• Create inter-shift teams to help build bridges between shifts
• Take time between questions to give additional training information
• Develop games for department heads or team leaders that give them opportunity to stretch their skills, and learn from each other

If you’d like to check out your staff’s reaction to a learning game, try this simple starting game. Use the questions at the end, or make up your own questions, and take a few minutes to watch what happens to your team. Here are two different approaches to try – pick the one you feel most comfortable with, and go for it!


Learning Game #1:

1.  Using a variety of brightly colored pieces of construction paper, lay out a “game board” on the floor. Make a semi-circle, or curve around in an “S” shape – be creative! Use about 20 squares of paper (more squares will make the game last longer, but you’ll also need more questions).
2. Use one large die from an activity set of dice, or put the numbers 1-6 on slips of paper and place in a basket for drawing.
3. Divide your group into two teams. You can count off (1-2-1-2) and send all the “1s” to one side of the room and the “2’s” to the other side, or divide in any way you choose. Consider mixing the teams up a bit from the way they might naturally divide.
4. Have each team choose a person to be its “marker.” That person stands next to square # 1, and moves each turn the number of squares rolled on the dice. If the “marker” lands on a square that the other team’s “marker” is already standing on, the “marker” already in place is bumped to the first square, and starts over. The first team reaching the last square “wins” the game.
5. Each team selects an individual to answer the first question; the second question goes to another team member, and so on until the game is complete. Try making some questions “team” questions, to be answered after a team conference rather than by one individual.
6. While winning has its own reward, a small Hershey’s kiss or other token prize will liven up the finish of the game.

Remember, the game has no right or wrong answers. Sharing, learning from each other, and growing in team relationship, knowledge and skills is the point.


Learning Game #2

This structure is easier to plan, but won’t facilitate the same competitive spirit as Game #1. Use this approach if you have a small group that’s already quite cohesive, or if you run out of preparation time, but still want to use a game format for learning.

1. Get a small foam ball, beach ball, or even a tightly wadded piece of paper.
2. Start by tossing the ball to one individual in the group. That person is now selected to answer the question, or pass. He or she then tosses the ball to another person, who must answer the next question, or pass and toss the ball on.
3. The game ends when all the questions have been asked and answered. Individuals who answer questions can be cheered, and then rewarded with the token “prize,” or recognized as a group at the end.

Sample Questions for Team Building Games

• Go to another person in the room and tell him or her something he/she does exceptionally well at work
• Give someone you don’t know well a sincere compliment
• Share one thing that could be done to make our staff a better “team”
• Name one thing that could help your team have more enthusiasm
• Name one thing that could help your team have more fun together
• Share one thing about yourself no one in the room knows.
• Finish this sentence: If someone on the team has a problem with me, I’d like them to: