Through The Great Resignation and beyond, what makes employees stick around?

While there’s plenty to be said for generous salaries, flexible schedules, and bountiful benefits packages, not all employers can afford the price tags associated with some of these options. Time and again, though, studies show that the most engaged employees are those who feel valued and recognized for their efforts, those who see opportunities for growth and advancement, and those provided with chances to learn.

Want to improve employee retention? Prioritize learning opportunities!

The 2023 edition of Experience Learning Live!, delivered by the Credit Union National Association and sponsored by Sogolytics, tackled exactly this challenge.

Training for the trainers

Too often, organizations rely on employee exit surveys to find out why team members decide to leave. Proactive outreach, before it’s too late, can help those in HR and leadership positions better understand why employees choose to stay.

CUNA ELL 2023, hosted in San Antonio, resonated with the message that training and development opportunities continue to help credit unions retain and engage top talent. Presenters from within and beyond the credit union movement highlighted hard data, explored social and emotional aspects of learning and growth, and shared success stories from the past year.

The annual Elly Awards showcased a wide range of successes in training programs, inspiring individuals, and exciting team collaborations. Many of the winners were recognized for “doing more with less” type programs that helped credit unions manage change. Technology updates, mergers, and new products were just a few of the changes credit union professionals brought up throughout the conference, testing the ability of Learning and Development teams to ramp up their efforts to support these changes. A number of winning programs highlighted “train the trainer” and “change champion” models that expanded trainers’ capacity

No bias, but…

While there were many engaging keynotes, panels, and breakout sessions, a personal favorite was “Learning About Learning: How the Right Data Can Help You Evaluate Success” — and yes, a little bias on this one, since I facilitated this one. 😉

One key question to kick this off: How do you measure the success of a specific training or of an L&D program? Employee retention, employee engagement scores, “better skills”, and more people completing more hours of training were all discussed as the current measures. Some participants noted that success measures for their departments (or their “army of one” teams!) were fuzzy at best. How can you measure success if you’re not sure what the metrics are? Tricky indeed.

A key part of this session was a candid discussion about the kinds of data trainers can (or could!) collect before, during, and after trainings in order to make them successful. The results were very interesting!

First: What kinds of data do you collect before learning? A few of the answers shared:

• Personal contact details
• Title/position
• Scheduling preferences
• Learning style
• Allergies

Two common tools that came up again and again: Learning Needs Assessments and Pre-Training Skills/Knowledge Tests. While many participants acknowledged the value of directly asking what employees are hoping to learn and assessing prior knowledge, several highlighted that this is sometimes a nice-to-have rather than a need-to-have.

Next: What kinds of data do you collect during learning?

• Attendance
• Quizzes on what’s being learned
• Perception questions: Do you enjoy how the training is being delivered?
• Exercises that demonstrate skills
• How active/engaged employees are during sessions
• Checklists for task completion

Finally: What kinds of data do you collect after learning?

• Total log of hours spent
• Post-test of knowledge
• 1:1 oral exam
• Course Evaluation: Feedback about the trainer/how the training was run
• Suggestions for future trainings

Also in the nice-to-have category, some participants mentioned 30-60-90-day check-ups to see if/how the training impacted the employee’s work. Others highlighted the value of a strong hand-off to managers to ensure reinforcement of the value of the learning/training completed.

As participants shared their ideas and experiences with each other, many expressed appreciation for the conversation. Said one attendee, “I learned that our greatest resource is each other!” Learning professionals, it turns out, love learning from each other. No surprise there! 😉

Learning and development success measures

If attendance and positive comments were the only success metrics, it would be easy to say that this event was a great success! Of course, for the learning and development professionals who attended, the key metrics aren’t as quick and easy to measure. Returning to work and putting these ideas into practice is challenging, as learning is both an art and a science. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to education and development, but continuously collecting data along the way can make a huge difference.

What feedback did we get from our own session? One of my favorite comments came from Morgan Mohrig, Director of Training and Development at Preferred Credit Union in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“I took a lot away from your session! By recognizing who is formally and informally responsible for our employee’s learning and development, we can ensure the right people and material is presented through a way that promotes their best interest and set up the credit union’s culture for a successful future.

An impactful statement you made was ‘People who are not learning will leave!’ This resonated with me so profoundly. I used to roll my eyes at an employee’s comments on their exit interview, stating they were ‘not trained on how to do [something]’ or ‘the training could have been better’, because training is always an easy scapegoat for not want to tell your employer the actual reason you are leaving a company. However, what I recognized in this statement is, if they were continuously learning, and we put a profound focus on their development and training, they would feel the value and the importance they are making at our institution. And just maybe, that can be the difference between retaining and developing our people versus another open position.”

Thanks to Morgan and everyone else who shared their insights during this session and throughout this outstanding credit union L&D conference!

Ready to reexamine your learning and development program to improve employee experience and retention? Find out how Sogolytics can help!