Effective Ways to Make Employee Training More Engaging

Brett Barlass, the dairy manager for Yosemite Jerseys works hard to set a positive culture on his Hilmar, Calif. dairy. The long-term manager finds unique and fun ways to engage with his employees, making meetings more fun and effective.

“We started doing [employee] meetings in the mornings at 5 a.m., so we’d play music in the backgrounds to get people jazzed up,” he says, explaining that was the best time to conduct meetings for their dairy, during shift changes.

Yosemite’s dairy team includes 26 employees and Barlass says at one point in time his eight milkers have been employed with them for 11.5 years and the average outside guy for 10.5 years.

“One thing that I’m super proud of is over nine years, I never had a guy not call or not show,” he says.

Yosemite Jerseys exchanged ownership in December of 2021. This is causing Barlass to try once again to replicate the same culture that was originally in place - now across six dairy sites with 19,000 cows and 200 employees.

“The family that I work for now has grown real fast,” he explains. “It's tough to fill all the right people in the right places so quick.” 

Barlass shares multiple things that helped contribute to the success Yosemite Jerseys saw with their dairy's employee retention. He contributes the following to help with employee retention. 

• Feedback and annual reviews
• Being honest, fair and sincere to help build trust and respect.
• Collaborate and follow through with employees. 
• Show appreciation and highlight accomplishments. 
• Informative monthly meetings

Jorge Delgado, the training and talent development for dairy workers at Alltech offers the following ways to make employee training presentations more fun and engaging.

• Gather door prizes to motivate interaction among employees.
• Bring snacks to the meeting.
• Hire an external trainer with engagement abilities and fun personality.
• Use toys to explain procedures and protocols.  Be very visual.
• Use a Power Point presentation with animations.
• Don’t overload your Power Presentations with information.
• Use videos to train your employees.  Example:  use video footage from the milking routine to address milking procedures
• Tell your employees that they are important and that their job is relevant.
• Come prepared to the training.  Know your information.
• Ask questions and promote participation.
• Be a good listener.
• Use body language. Walk around the room and maintain eye contact.
• Make sure the training environment is clean.  Clean rooms, table, chairs, etc.
• Follow up after the training.
• Give certificates of achievement after the trainings
• Use simple words to explain technical procedures.
• Change topics for next meetings.  Employees love to learn. 
• Once in a while use different topics not related to Dairy:  finances, health, communication, leadership, etc. 
• Provide notepads and pens for the employees to take notes.
• Be funny and not too serious.
• Explain your “why” and have them explain their “whys.”

“The best way to train new employees is by explaining the why’s and how’s behind any procedure,” Delgado states. “Employees value information.”