education is very important for adults

Education is essential for every human being. We cannot survive in this world without education. It is in the best interest of the governments of every nation to ensure that at least basic education is provided to all their citizens. There are several socio-economic reasons that lead many people to discontinue their studies when they are young. Most of them may have had burning desires to continue their education further, but their commitments to their families or their economic status may have been a hindrance to their continuing their studies. Many of these adults who were dropouts from the schools in their childhood yearn to continue their education at a later and more convenient time. This has lead to the development of several adult education programs worldwide. These adult education programs come as a boon to those adults looking to complete what education they've left incomplete. When the government started these adult education programs, initially there was not a lot of response to such programs from most people. They were very reluctant to join such programs.

Though many of them wanted to make an attempt, they were not sure whether they could pick up their educational threads at that age. The governments had to take a lot of steps to encourage people to join. There is a saying that is very popular, and can apply to many different situations: "better late than never." Many adults have realized the importance and necessity of education and have come forward to enroll themselves in the many adult education programs available. They consider it a privilege to be able to educate themselves, even at an advanced stage of their lives.

These educational programs are organized by both government as well as voluntary institutions. Adult education programs not only provide basic education, they also guide their students towards higher education. These programs arrange financial aid and scholarships for students.
Adults can pursue their careers and enroll themselves in these programs simultaneously. This is made possible with the availability of online programs.

The people are provided with coursework that deals with politics, spirituality, self development, and other things. Adults usually tend to find these programs useful and interesting. They normally end up urging their relatives and friends to join these programs.

differences in education by training

Many people don't understand the difference between education and training. Education is giving out information and communicating to your trainees. Training is about practice and building skills. Today's younger generation of employees wants to be trained, not educated.
Problem is, if we don’t educate them before we train them, it could lead to problems. Same can be said for learning about the birds and the bees--if the education part isn’t done effectively, the training could lead to undesirable results!
Mark Flores, director of ops for Chuck E. Cheese’s, uses the macaroni-and-cheese example to demonstrate the difference. We’ve all made mac & cheese plenty of times in our lives, but if we don’t follow the instructions exactly, we might get macaroni soup, crunchy macaroni, or something else other than what we intended.

Manuals. Boooooring! We do need documentation, but make it fun! Include tons of photos and minimal text so it’s more of a comic strip look. People are more likely to remember what they see versus what they read, so retention of information is better. Additionally, it’s easier to translate into other languages.

Videos. Better than reading for most employees, but they need to be short segments (3--5 minutes maximum) with tons of visual image changes. Our employees today are used to watching CNN with talking video, a crawler message along the bottom, and the weather forecast on the side--all while having four online chats with their friends. Long, drawn-out videos lose their attention quickly. Watch a segment and go practice what you learn. You can watch the next segment after that.

Online. Golden Corral, White Castle, Sea Island Shrimp House, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Chuck E. Cheese’s are all using or testing e-learning. Since it is self-paced, it goes at the speed of the learner. Be careful: As we’ve seen with e-books, it’s not too comfortable to read a book on a PC, so keep the text to a minimum. Review questions can be built in as a checkpoint for the learner to advance to the next section. Great way to replace video and print, but it’s still not "training."

Tests. We all hate tests! To ensure consistency in tests, keep them simple and visual (use as many pictures as possible), and use multiple-choice, ordering, or true-false format to ensure consistency in grading. Most of our employees no longer take fill-in-the-blank or essay tests. Ensure they have the basics down. Do all your trainers actually grade tests the same way?

All the above forms of "training" are really just education, yet most managers think it’s training. We didn’t get our driver’s license after reading the book, watching the video, and passing a test--we had to demonstrate our skills to the authorities before we received permission to drive. Education is the necessary evil that must come first, though.

Do we follow the same format with our employees? Many companies do not--we just memorize a bunch of useless information the guest cares little about and then we’re ready. You need to be validated on the skills it takes to do the job and re-validated periodically in the future. Knowing the job and doing the job are two entirely different things--and the guest notices.

Skill Validation

Having the new employee demonstrate skills for a manager shows you two things: how good the trainer was, and that the employee can do the functions of the job. We all might think we have the same definition of "greet the guest" or "suggestive sell," but when we see our employees in action, we find it’s all across the board. If we don’t coach them through the skill, they will simply do what they see at other restaurants (which often isn’t good). Conduct these validations every 90--180 days to keep standards top of mind.

People train people. Just because someone is a good employee doesn’t mean they will be a good trainer. The proper tools to educate will help, but the payoff is in the trainer demonstrating, coaching, and validating the skill of a new employee. To illustrate this point to your team, ask your trainers to train you on how to tie your shoes or put on a shirt. Act like you know nothing about it. Point being, it’s a simple task we can all do in our sleep--like ringing up orders or making burgers--but it’s incredibly hard to train someone else how to do it.