Elements of a Whole-Person Approach to Employee Training

HR, L&D, and business leaders—are you truly supporting the whole person behind the job title? A whole-person approach to training can drive deeper engagement, better retention, and real growth.

Holistic development helps retain top talent, as employees are 3.6 times happier at their company if they get opportunities to learn and grow, states a recent study.

If you think of your learners as human beings with a life outside of your organization, you may approach training differently. They are not just employees, assets, or resources. They are people with hopes and dreams, along with worries and problems. They value their personal lives. Their after-work lives can affect their focus and productivity, so it’s in your best interest to provide training resources to support whole-person development.

Consider the Human Experience: A Whole-Person Approach

When going through the hiring experience, most focus is on job-related experience and skills. Does the candidate have what the company needs? After the person is hired, employers focus on training skills required for the job and for career development.

But, what about training on topics affecting employees in their personal lives? Offering a full library of training that employees can access on their own can make critical information available when needed.

• Everyone could use help managing stress and burnout, whether it's caused by work or personal life issues. Enjoy a lesson on sustainable self-care, compliments of HSI!
• Those new to the workforce could use training on professionalism and navigating workplace politics to support career growth and advancement.
• Working parents and caregivers could benefit from courses on FMLA, parental leave, and work-life balance.

Do More Than Just Check the Box

Some companies approach training with a bare minimum, “check the box” mentality. They offer safety and compliance training because it is required by law. The goal is compliance, not professional development, nor personal development.

These companies are not looking for employee engagement or thinking about whole-person development yet. Making sure people are safe—from job hazards to harassment and bullying—is the right thing to do. It’s also a smart place to start.

This approach can begin to create the foundation of a whole-person development program. Keep people safe and help people understand harassment, discrimination, and bullying. These are all important goals, but this approach won’t fully support a significant shift towards a workplace culture of innovation, collaboration, or creativity.

Train the Person, Not Just the Employee

There are many attributes HR and L&D professionals can use to compare employee training content: video style, live presenter, computer animation, role-playing actors, interactivity, graphics, music, student materials, exams and quizzes, languages, and more.

Training topics that support whole-person development may be a new concept to consider. Consider taking a more comprehensive approach and thinking about the human being. This thinking is rooted in empathy and genuine care and concern for learners as people.

It’s similar to a more holistic approach to mental health that addresses the whole person and their physical, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being.

“Supporting employees as whole people is the key to long-term, sustainable business success. Creating a Whole-Person Workplace helps you attract the best talent, who then want to stay, become increasingly engaged, and then treat your customers as whole people as well.”
—Scott Behson, author of The Whole-Person Workplace: Building Better Workplaces Through Work-Life, Wellness, and Employee Support

Here’s how whole person development training can be fleshed out into six main areas:

Job-Related Training

Any new hire training program is going to start with day-one essentials and core job responsibilities. These also have implications for the whole-person approach.

Onboarding: An employee’s understanding of health care, insurance, 401k, FSA, etc., all affect the well-being of the family. If an organization’s onboarding training is rushed or confusing, the employee may make a costly mistake in choosing an out-of-network provider or delay saving for their retirement.

• Company Tools: A thorough explanation of access credentials, online tools, and company processes will ease the transition and lower stress for the employee.
• Technology and Software Skills: New technology training is not necessarily just for new hires, as AI tools, automation platforms, and hardware advances every second! Be cognizant of new hires finding themselves going from Gmail and Google Docs to Outlook, SharePoint, and Teams overnight? Even senior business leaders can feel off balance without the right software training to ease the transition. Learn more about software skills training from HSI.
• Industrial Skills: Electric workers, system operators, or maintenance workers all must be professionally trained to be safe and productive. Learn more about how HSI industrial skills training can help.

Consider workplace culture: New hire training can help employees make a strong connection to the company, feel a sense of belonging, and acclimate to their new work environment. Training topics related to the organization’s company culture might include ethics, building accountability, civility in the workplace, the art of saying no, cultivating gratitude, and cross-cultural considerations.

Safety/Compliance Training

Safety Training: Effective safety training ensures employees return home to their families safe and sound each day. Each organization has unique needs around workplace safety management, incident reporting, and chemical management.

The information an employee learns about topics like ladder safety, fire extinguishers, emergency exits, first aid, driving safety, etc., can also be shared with family members to keep them safe in their own lives.

Compliance: There is no room for harassment, bullying, or discrimination in the workplace. Effective HR compliance training will create a safe workplace culture for everyone. Training can go beyond the law and embrace the whole person for a deeper understanding of the issues.

• Training on the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, along with courses on preparing for maternity leave.
• Training on sexual harassment to understand the law, coupled with bystander training.
• Training on age discrimination, together with courses on working well with different generations.

Soft Skills Training

Soft skills training plays an important role in the whole-person approach to training, touching on every aspect of employee growth and success. Soft skills training strengthens leadership development, boosts engagement, and supports long-term retention across an organization’s workforce.

Soft skills are a set of abilities that reflect how well a person gets along with others around them and how well they’re able to identify and address problems. That definition is not limited to just getting along with co-workers. It includes everyone, even friends and family members! And having the ability to identify and address problems at work will be useful in your personal life, as well.

Active Listening: If someone watches HSI’s course on active listening, they may put their cell phone down and make eye contact when they ask their family, “How was your day?”

Time Management: HSI’s time management series offers practical strategies for parents juggling busy family schedules—from chores and carpooling to sports, homework, and mealtimes. It’s also a valuable resource for caregivers managing responsibilities like doctor’s appointments, transportation, health insurance, and grocery delivery—whether they’re supporting aging parents, a spouse, or others.

Setting SMART Goals: Improving SMART goal-setting skills at work can transfer to home life to help children and adults achieve their goals.

Conflict Management: Learning how to maintain self-control and following the acronym EASY (empathize, ask, solve, then confirm with a yes) might help spouses and families resolve conflict at home.

DISC: Understanding the DISC style of teams and fellow co-workers can help improve interactions and productivity. Knowing the DISC style of children can help in parenting. When there's sibling fighting, help them deal with social issues and conflicts with their friends. It also helps challenge them to work outside their style and become more adaptable.

How to Build Resilience: A learner can apply the three elements of resilience (challenge, commitment, and personal control) to develop resilience in the workplace and at home.

Leadership Skills: An entry-level employee can benefit from leadership training to learn how to be more assertive when managing a charitable giving project for the company. A project manager can apply leadership skills when empowering team members to take the lead on specific tasks.

HSI’s off-the-shelf course library explores more unexpected topics for soft skills training to truly support whole-person development. A few examples include:

• Opioid addiction
• Conflict resolution
• Stopping the drama
• Child abuse and neglect
• Managing time vs. energy
• What is human trafficking?
• See something, say something
• Keeping track of your teen while you're at work

Mental Health Support

Empathetic employers prioritize employee well-being by actively supporting the mental health of the workforce. Offering a robust benefits package that includes healthcare, employee assistance programs (EAP), and a supportive and inclusive workplace culture is a good place to start. Taking training a step further by incorporating wellness programs makes it even more impactful.

Training topics to support the mental health of the whole person could include:

• Mental illness
• Anger management
• Stress management
• Cultivating gratitude
• Emotional intelligence
• Managing work-life balance

Physical Health Support

Employers can benefit from lower healthcare costs when they do a better job of supporting the physical health and personal needs of their employees. The basics include providing clean, safe, and ergonomic workspaces. Proper lighting and ventilation, PPE, and safety training are a must.

Many companies offer additional benefits for the physical body, like gym memberships, standing workstations, nap pods, onsite massages, and more.

Physical health is another topic where off-the-shelf videos can support the whole-person approach to training. Topics can include:

• Ergonomics
• Deskercises
• Active shooter
• Fighting the Flu
• Science of Sleep
• Avoidable Stress
• First Aid and CPR
• Understanding Headaches
• Know your Numbers (Cholesterol, blood pressure, BMI)

Financial Health Training

Financial literacy training for employees has many benefits that support the whole person. These include stress relief, higher productivity, and improved job satisfaction. Effective onboarding of new employees addresses their financial health with clear explanations of how to choose and use health insurance, the power of the 401K match, and the ease of direct deposit.

Thoughtful employers will recognize that some employees were previously unbanked and may be receiving their first consistent paycheck. Others feel overwhelmed by student loans. Some employees may be applying for a home loan. It may have been 20+ years since the employee first applied for their own home loan, and they need updated information.

Financial worries can be very distracting during the workday. Employees need to be able to focus and do their best work. Offering financial literacy training will help support these employees to be more successful at work and at home. Topics could include:

• Savings
• Checking
• Types of Credit
• Managing Credit
• Personal Budget

Inclusion, Belonging, and Engagement Training

Whole-person development also encompasses inclusion, belonging, and engagement training topics. The goal is to help employees engage in their work in a positive, respectful manner, reduce and eliminate discrimination and prejudice, and increase empathy and social awareness. Companies work to keep employees safe from harassment, workplace injuries, and bullying.

Some of HSI’s inclusion, belonging, and engagement training topics include:

• • Civility in the Workplace
  • Unconscious Bias: What is Unconscious Bias?
  • Anti-Racism: Creating and Implementing Policy
  • Working Well with Everyone: The Power of Inclusion
  • Emotional Intelligence: Recognizing Other People's Emotions
  • Safe and Respectful Workplaces: Addressing Bullying and Violence

Self-Directed Learning and an Off-the-Shelf Library

Personal growth: Working with a company, like HSI, and subscribing to our off-the-shelf library of training gives employees instant access to hundreds of courses like the ones mentioned here.

Each employee has a unique background, skill set, and life experiences. Opening up the library for self-directed learning allows each person to search for the courses that are most helpful. Employees can choose the courses that best support their goals and help them reach their full potential. Our HSI LMS was built mobile-first, learner-first, so employees can access it anytime, anywhere!

HSI Can Help

“The real way to have business success is to value employees as whole people, not just as part of the machine or a part of the person that you get from nine to five.”
—Scott Behson

Ready to start reaping the benefits of a whole person approach to training? Request a consultation and experience HSI’s unique approach to learning with both video and article-based lessons.

Additional Resources

• Ways Soft Skills Training Supports Company Core Values [+ Examples]
• The Power of Microlearning: A Proven Learning Strategy for Workplaces
• Maximize your ROI with Strategic L&D Training Infographic! Free Download!