Training new and existing employees can be a company’s biggest challenge, especially in a rapidly changing business environment. An effective training program is built by following a systematic, step-by-step process.
Training initiatives that stand alone (consisting of one-off events) often fail to meet organizational objectives and participant expectations. The need for effective, on-going training that can be delivered online is especially important with today’s increasingly remote workforce.
Consider these key steps to both build out and update an effective training and development program:
Survey your employees
The best source of information about organizational performance and needs are your current employees. They know a lot about what’s going on and what, if anything, should be changed. They’ll appreciate your interest and provide valuable feedback about what could be better or eliminated.
Align training with operating goals
Management always has operating goals: better performance, productivity, quality, or customer satisfaction. Once you know the goals, you can design targeted programs. Additionally, look for others in your company who have needs that could be satisfied by training: Legal usually supports compliance training, marketing and sales might support training that promotes quality and consistency, and most departments will support supervisory skills training that promotes employee satisfaction.
Run it like a business
Every new business starts with a strategic plan. Make sure you draft a plan for your training effort that includes:
- Clearly state your purpose and proposed deliverables.
- Construct a realistic budget. Include all expenses, and be conservative.
- Include an analysis of the benefits to your organization so that everyone can better understand the return on their investment.
- Know the numbers. Work closely with your company’s financial team to include the appropriate information and how best to display it.
- Market your program as if it were for customers. Leverage your public relations, graphics and marketing departments to brand and promote your programs, and design surveys to get feedback from participants.
- Conduct pilot classes to make sure your plan works. Trial runs help identify shortcomings and allow you to refine and make the program as good as everyone expects and needs it to be.
Weave it into your company’s culture
Companies want happy employees, so consider a “life-long training” philosophy that focuses on employee satisfaction.
Celebrate achievements and successes. Let everyone in your organization know when someone completed training and what that means to their growth opportunities.
Increase employee engagement by planning more opportunities for them to get involved. They could be trainers or subject matter experts, or could assist in evaluating their new colleagues and helping to reinforce their training.
Measure results
Successful companies measure outcomes to make sure they continue to get the biggest bang for their buck. The best measures are the simplest ones; incorporate them into your program so everyone knows what’s expected. Look for corresponding behaviors on the job to determine if employees actually learned how to perform appropriately.
An effective training process delivers on its worth when it is based on the right kind of feedback and recorded employee experiences that permit the training to be aligned to your true business goals.
