The Future of Employee Training
Most employers have the organization goal to train and develop their employees, but the age old question always arises. In what areas do employees need to be developed? Perhaps organizations need to approach training their employee’s brains like fitness instructors train their bodies.
Dr. Judy Brockis, the author of Future Brain: The 12 Keys to Create Your High Performance Brain, suggests we can drastically improve our brain’s performances. Let’s start by describing Dr. Brockis twelve keys to brain performance.
Click here to read more about these twelve brain keys.
Key nine focuses on Change ability, a skill that can assist employees and organizations to adapt to change.
What is brain change ability? Well, the concept is very closely tied to the concept of neural plasticity, which is the brain’s ability to grow, develop and change its neural structural. Research on neural plasticity is well developed and it illustrates that we all have the ability to grow and develop at any age. If we combine the concept of neural plasticity and Dr. Brockis’s brain key number nine, change ability, we may have more tools to help employees manage change in their workplace.
Dr. Brockis outlines that our brains are dynamic and designed to change and adapt. It is our fear response that can impede change.
In her article in HRM Canada, Dr. Brockis feels that the human brain “is really wired to change, change is beneficial and always present, and it is part of the human condition. But it is all about psychological safety, the brain needs to feel that the change is not a threat in order to accept it.”
Click here to read an article on Dr. Brockis and change in the workplace.
The HR professional needs to understand the future training needs of employees and should become versed in the concepts neural plasticity and change ability, and integrate them into any change management program they wish to implement.
Discussion Question:
- Your VP of HR has asked you what you would recommend to make a workplace change successful. After reading the twelve keys to a fit brain, create a five minute presentation on training employees on a fit brain in the workplace and how it can reduce the turmoil during an upcoming change initiative.