What’s it: Cognitive training is training to improve brain-related abilities, including memory, reasoning, and information processing. It is important to develop core abilities and self-control. The method can be through cardiovascular fitness training or playing online games. Alternatively, the trainer asks participants to complete a cognitive task.
This training helps your employees to improve their cognitive abilities, which are needed in their daily work in addition to technical skills. However, the benefits are more difficult to measure and may not be effective if they are faced in actual situations – it is only effective in training.
Why is cognitive training important?
Daily work requires not only technical skills. Often, employees have to use their brains to process information and think before deciding or acting. They may also be required to be good listeners to absorb the information conveyed.
In other cases, they have to remember more to learn useful new things or remember useful past information. And, it’s not just when they go about their daily tasks. For example, a friendly work environment requires them to remember their coworkers’ names. So, they can communicate more effectively. Otherwise, interpersonal relationships will tend to be awkward.
It all requires the ability to think. For this reason, cognitive training is essential. It helps your employees to become better and more effective in, for example, reasoning, solving problems, and making decisions. In addition, their ability to focus and pay attention can also be improved through training.
On the other hand, weak cognitive skills can prevent your employees from playing an effective role. For example, say an employee has poor memory skills. As a result, it causes him to experience problems such as being late for assignments or not following orders from superiors because he forgot.
What are the types of cognitive training?
Training methods can vary. It may involve physical exercise to improve cardiovascular fitness, promoting better memory function. It keeps their brains in shape.
Another method may be playing video games to improve short-term memory, speed of information processing, and decision making. Or it is by completing a cognitive task and participating in a creative pursuit activity.
Cognitive training can also be distinguished according to its objectives. Some may be to train memory skills. Others are useful for practicing reasoning skills, information processing, and attention.
Attention skills. This helps your employees stay focused even when there are distractions around. So, for example, they can stay focused on details while working on several tasks at once.
Memory skills. It aims to improve your employees’ ability to remember information stored in the past. Or, it’s to temporarily store information – while doing other work – and recall it back.
Reasoning skills. It helps your employees think, analyze and explore ideas to solve problems.
Information processing speed. It is important to improve your employees’ ability to process various incoming information. As a result, they can more quickly and accurately process and sort information while ignoring distractions.
What are the advantages of cognitive training?
Increasing age makes your employees’ mental abilities decline. Thus, cognitive training is important to improve it, or at least, minimize its negative effects. And in general, this training helps your company deal with cognitive decline issues related to attention, processing speed, and memory. Here is an example:
Attention. Its decreased ability can cause problems such as being easily distracted because your employees are not focused.
Memory. When memory decreases, your employees can experience difficulty following multi-step commands. Or, they forgot to do some important tasks.
Reasoning. Your employees find it difficult to cope with new problems which require a more holistic approach. In other cases, some employees annoy coworkers because they often need help to solve their problems.
Processing speed. Its decline can lead to lengthy decision-making. So, your employees may have to spend a long time completing tasks or jobs.
And in general, cognitive training provides benefits such as increased self-confidence. For example, your employees effectively carry out tasks or orders because they can be more focused. They can also understand new information more deeply and can learn it quickly.
Then, when new problems arise, your employees can develop ways to solve them. This training prepares them with the skills to analyze and find solutions.
What are the disadvantages of cognitive training?
How effective is cognitive training? It is more difficult to measure than technical training because it is inherent in the individual.
Also, even if they attend the same training, your two employees may benefit in different proportions because they have different brains and cognitive problems. Take memory skills training as a case. It might help one more but not the other. That’s because one has a certain memory deficit while the other doesn’t.
The next weakness is related to effectiveness. Training may only have a temporary effect. It has a positive effect during training but not when your employees are working and faced with real situations. When your employees attend training, the atmosphere is designed specifically to exercise. It can be significantly different from the situations they face daily. As a result, the training effect may be effective if the workplace has an atmosphere similar to training.
What to read next
- On-the-job Training: Types, Advantages, Disadvantages
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- Off-the-job Training: Types, Advantages, and Disadvantages
- Cognitive Training: Types, Advantages, and Disadvantages
- Behavioral Training: Types, Advantages, Disadvantages
- Apprenticeship: Costs and Benefits
- Employee Development: Types and Benefits
- Training: Definition, Importance, Types, and Benefits
