The connection between staff training and the Company’s Brand
Is it possible to build a stronger, better Brand by changing how you train your staff?
3 things you need to know:
Defining the purpose, mission & culture enable your employees to live the brand and become internal-influencers.
Embracing a ‘social media’ approach to learning.
Quick-tips on how to create micro-learning tailored to your employee.
Inside–out branding
Building a brand that sets you apart from the competition is paramount. The strength and uniqueness of your brand can make or break your business. Despite being aware of this, many businesses struggle to build a strong brand. This is because most of them get it wrong from the start: they take an external approach, instead of building their brand from the inside out.
Creating internal-influencers and passionate staff members means communicating purpose, mission and fostering job satisfaction.
In the future, staff training won’t be a 200 page manual but a ‘Google approach’. Bite-sized learning will make training more user-friendly. Instead of huge amounts of text and documentation, employees will turn to more engaging forms of content.
Where’s the connection between Learning and the Company’s Brand?
It’s the culture that ties them together.
If you want your brand to be relevant, you can’t look at it as an isolated part of your business.
Purpose is the reason why your company exists, and the brand needs to be an outward reflection of this purpose. Its inward reflection is your company’s culture. It’s of the utmost importance for your culture to be in line with your brand. This way you can communicate its purpose to all important stakeholders.
Have you heard of influencer marketing? Of course you have!
The same thing exists for your staff - If people really are our biggest asset, let’s empower them to thrive.
Good training methods should motivate employees. When this is the case, they are far more productive and devoted to their job. This creates a company that’s built on high work quality and employee engagement.
Becoming an internal-influencer
When this happens, your employees are champions of your/their brand, to which consumers will respond positively. This is the core idea behind building your brand from the inside out.
Another way that training influences your brand is by ensuring that the employees feel the connection with the company’s mission. If you develop a good training strategy, your employees will embody the company’s purpose and transfer it to the brand.
Take Apple for an example. There’s a reason why their brand enjoys such immense value. The reason is because the company nurtures creativity and innovation in their employees. As a result, consumers recognise Apple as one of the biggest innovators in the industry.
Social media and learning
Attention spans are shortening, scrolling though your feed for ‘click-worthy’ content is a billion dollar business.
Could learning mirror social content? That was the big idea worth exploring…
Just think about it. If you had to replace your car battery, would you turn to the car manual or take a look at a minute-long YouTube video?
The conventional way of learning is not only ineffective but also time-consuming. Think 200 pages consisting of 99% text with minimal pictures. The goal of all learning is to find actionable information that you’ll have in your mind when it comes the time to use them. Huge books and manuals fail to ensure this. And what would happen to the materials afterwards the training?
How to create micro-learning?
Focus on the ONE thing
First of all, make sure your content only focuses on one thing at a time. Make sure its relevant. Failing to do so might kill the entire point of bite-sized learning. Don’t make your employees sift through a bunch of useless content to find what they are looking for.
Cut to the chase
You also need to make sure that the content is engaging. In the first 15 seconds share what your employees will get as a result of watching. Arduous information might make your employees lose interest, which will decrease learning and be a wasted opportunity.
UX
Another important task is to make the information user-friendly. If you want to maximise productivity, you don’t want your people to deal with a complex software that stands between them and the info they need. Ensure that the design is clean and intuitive. Incorporate advanced search features so that your employees can find what they need in an instant. BUT, it’s not all fancy tech stuff. Ask us about our recent learning rollout. It’s super simple but hugely effective!
Personalised
Lastly, you need to personalize. Not everyone has the same skill level or needs. Customize the system to fit different people. For example, we recently completed a document for each manager level, which gave them tools and resources tailored to their job.
What’s next
Building your brand from the inside out. It may not be the most well-known solution, but it’s certainly among the most effective.
All employees should be able to access training information in an instant. No more 200-page guides, just concise training information that employees can actually use and remember.
No matter if this is external customers or internal comms a brand is seen, spoken and felt. If staff were able to understand the essence of the brand then they'd be able to represent it.
About the Author
Jason Knight is the founder and creative director of Moved by Design, designing brand identities and learning material for corporate HR businesses. He has spent over 15 years blending HR with marketing, which has made him a finely tuned visual communicator.