Games and activities can make workplace training far more enjoyable, but they should always have a purpose. Rather than adding them simply for fun, use activities that support the learning objectives and help participants practise the skills they are developing.
At a Glance: Effective workplace training activities should:
- Help the learning objectives
- Involve all participants
- Encourage discussion and practice
- Match the audience type
- Finish with a short debrief or round-up
What Are the Benefits of Using Activities in Workplace Training?
Activities in workplace training improve learner engagement, encourage participation, reinforce key concepts, and help employees remember and apply new skills more effectively.
Standing in front of the workshop or training session participants for hours on end can make for a somewhat dull experience for those participants.
After a while, participants are likely to begin to daydream and gradually lose enthusiasm unless they are truly a captivating trainer.
Even the best trainers, though, appreciate the way in which interactive teaching makes for a much better overall experience for the students.
So below are some thoughts on the benefit of using games as a part of your training plan.
What Types of Games Can You Use?
The best workplace training games are those that support the learning objectives. Team-building exercises, icebreakers, quizzes, role plays, and problem-solving activities can all be effective when used at the right time.
The type of game you choose to use depends on the type of training session, but the most common games are based on team building.
Putting participants into teams and getting them to work as a unit, as a team, in order to try and achieve a given goal, can be a great hands-on way to give them a way to hone their skills.
Team-building games can be mental or physical or a combination of both. The emphasis should be on all members of a team working together and for no individual to be excluded.
Games can be especially effective in their use in topic areas that otherwise might be considered quite boring by the attendees. Games are effective in spicing up the learning process.
These games can also be a wonderful tool as an icebreaker, meaning that they can be used to help participants to get to know each other, particularly when these people will not have known each other before the training day.
How Should You Prepare Training Activities?
Before using any workplace training activity, it’s important to have a clear purpose, that is one that matches your learning objectives, ensure all participants are included, and that it all fits within the available session time.
If you plan to use activities in workplace training, consider these 4 points first:
1. Understand the Purpose
Make sure that any game you decide to include as a part of the training does have clear objectives from your point of view, as the trainer.
Is the game intended to act as an icebreaker to build the experience for participants, and will the game give other benefits, such as reinforcing the topic at hand?
2. Will it Engage Everyone?
Will the game or activity you plan to use be one that is likely to get everyone in each group involved and help people to mix?
3. Does it Connect with the Training Content
Consider if you want to use the game to reinforce the course content with a Trivial Pursuit-style Q&A game towards the end of the training.
4. Timeframes
Decide on a time frame that you will allocate for the game and ensure that you provide exact and clear rules and guidelines for the participants so that there is no confusion as to what the game entails.
Why Does Games-Based Learning Work?
Games-based learning works because it helps create active participation, helps learners retain information, and gives people the opportunity to experience and practise new skills in a safe and engaging environment.
1. Games help participants to internalize information because they encourage experiential learning, allowing people to learn by doing rather than simply listening.
2. Games are known to help skills retention when the game connects with the training topic
3. In a training room, if games are organized well, the environment is a safe location for not winning, in that the games can be fun but without
4. As alluded to earlier, games help to offset the possibility of boredom that can otherwise be set up when participants have no real opportunity to be active and to have a voice in the training.
5. Games can be fun and make the training a memorable experience rather than a monotonous experience.
How to Effectively Integrate Games and Activities into Corporate Training
The most effective way to use workplace training activities is to choose exercises that support your learning objectives, suit your audience, and finish with a short debrief. The suggestions below will help you achieve that.
a. Make Sure to Align Activities with the Learning Objectives
If you’re looking for ideas, see our guide to the different types of classroom activities for adults. It explains when to use icebreakers, role plays, problem-solving exercises, discussions, quizzes, and other activities to match different learning objectives before choosing a specific exercise.
To make it much easier for you, I have written and posted a batch of free Training activities for you under different topics such as feedback, resilience, time management, and body language activities.
Also, make sure to:
- Tailor the Activities: Try not to use any icebreaker or team-building activities, but use one that is tailored specifically to the skills or knowledge being taught. For example, if you are teaching feedback skills, use activities such as the ‘Feedback Circle’, Feedback Fishbowl’, or ‘Peer Review Circles’ (see all three here on the feedback activities page).
- Relevance: At the beginning of each activity, take a moment to explain why you are using that specific activity or game and how it’s related to the training topic.
b. Adapt The Activities to Match Your Audience
Not every game will work for every group, but you can normally tailor most activities to suit the type of audience you are providing training for.
- Consider the Activity Level: Firstly, consider the level of experience of the employees being taught. Are you teaching senior managers or are you providing induction training for new staff recently graduated? For senior managers who know each other well already, simple icebreaker activities might be too simplistic and not ideal for use. On the other hand, for new staff who know no one, the icebreakers might be perfect.
- Be Inclusive: It is also important to ensure that the games are inclusive, both in terms of disabilities and in terms of pedagogy and learning styles. We learn in different ways, ie some via listening, others via kinesthetics, so if using a few activities, mix them up in terms of learning styles. Try also to make the activities and games such that participants of all physical abilities can be included.
c. Balance Fun and Learning
It is not always easy, but try always to maintain the balance between making training fun and ensuring it is educational, for example, participants actually walk away learning something.
Making training enjoyable doesn’t mean sacrificing learning. If you’d like more ideas, take a look at my guide on how to make workplace training fun while still keeping participants focused on the learning outcomes.
It can sometimes be too easy to focus on the fun element when designing training, so do keep this in mind.
- Fun But Also…..: Training games and activities such as icebreakers should be fun, but they have to aid the learning process in some way.
- Debrief Sessions Can Help: I find that debriefing sessions are a wonderful way to end any game or activity that you run in employee training so that you can reinforce the point of the activity and the takeaway from it.
- Link to Real Work Situations: In a lot of training activities, you can tie in the work sector of the participants you are giving the training to with the activity itself. Many activities, for example, use role-plays, so make the scenarios a match to the sector of their work. Team building activities for work can also often be tailored to the team’s normal roles.
d. Use Technology Where Appropriate
Some types of employee training programs can benefit from the inclusion of technology if you have the resources to use technology in this way. Some ways to include technology are as follows:
- Virtual Games for Remote Teams: Hybrid workplaces are more common than ever before, so using platforms such as Quizizz or virtual escape rooms can be handy ways to engage remote employees.
- Interactive Learning Tools: Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are also powerful and useful tools to consider. These tools can be particularly useful for providing employee training and development where high-level problem-solving skills are needed, such as in healthcare or engineering settings.
- Gamified Learning Platforms: Gamification is something that can also now be included in workplace training design by including progress bars, rewards, and social learning apps.
By carefully aligning games and activities with the training’s learning objectives, adapting them for the audience, ensuring they are educational as well as fun, and incorporating technology where appropriate, you can create a dynamic and effective corporate training environment.
Incorporating games and activities in workplace training can really help to make training fun and far more enjoyable, in addition to much more memorable from a learning standpoint.
This guide is one of our Trainer Delivery & Facilitation Skills guides, where you can find advice on delivering engaging workplace training sessions.
FAQs
How long should a workplace training activity last?
There isn’t a single ideal length, but most workplace training activities work well when they last between 10 and 30 minutes, depending on their purpose. The activity should be long enough for participants to practise the skill or discuss the topic, while leaving enough time for a short debrief and the rest of the training session.
What types of activities work best for adult learners?
The best activities for adult learners are ones that stimulate the participants, such as ones that involve active participation, role plays, group discussions, problem-solving exercises, or well-designed icebreakers. If the activity is related directly to their workplace, it can also greatly help.
How do you make workplace training more engaging?
The best way to keep participants engaged is to involve them throughout the training rather than expecting them to sit and listen for long periods. Encourage discussion, ask questions, and include activities that allow people to practise what they have just learned.
One Final Tip
I’ve seen trainers spend a great deal of time looking for the perfect game, when in reality it’s how you use the activity that makes the difference. A straightforward exercise with a clear objective and a good debrief will usually have far more impact than an elaborate game that doesn’t reinforce the learning.
