Continuous workplace training and learning have been a topic of discussion for a long time. The need for workplace training can be anything from meeting compliance requirements in a particular industry, to engaging and encouraging employees to increase retention.
Oftentimes, traditional methods of employee training plan and development can be ineffective, slow, and costly. Keeping pace with today’s rapidly changing world and news updates requires continuous development of skills for individuals, where team leaders and managers have an important responsibility.
Even though employee training plan is a necessity, a lot of companies from different industries feel that developing an effective employee training plan can be challenging. An employee training plan is a manual that covers the strategies, curriculum, learning outcomes, and methods for training employees to improve their competencies and productivity.
Fortunately, there are some foolproof ways to develop an employee training program, and below we share an easy step-by-step guide that will help you improve overall business outcomes.
Identify Training Needs and Opportunities
The first step in any employee training plan is assessing what your needs are and if there are any learning opportunities. If you work in a regulated industry, then you might need training courses to make sure your employees have the right understanding of the industry and fulfill compliance requirements. You might see that certain teams in your company aren’t as efficient or productive as other teams and fail to meet the needs of your business.
Creating an employee training plan can be a great way to fill this performance gap. In addition, you can improve the work experience for your employees and ultimately improve retention. Workplace training and soft skills training can significantly help employees who aspire to develop as individuals and future leaders which can save you money on recruitment efforts and also encourage employees to stay with a company.
After looking closely at the compliance needs, performance gaps as well as career development opportunities as motivation for training, the next step is making sure that each training plan proposal has a clear business objective.
You should also determine the type of employee training plan you wish to implement. Are you looking for in-house seminars or industry conferences, do you want individual training or group coaching sessions as a way to contribute to creating a positive work environment and enhancing employee productivity?
Develop Learning Objectives
Once you identify your training needs, you’ll need to outline the main learning objectives of the employee training plan. The main objective should be aligned with your business objectives so that each learning opportunity can help make the business needs achievable. Your objectives as well as subsequent goals should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound).
After you set an overall objective, break it down into individual targets. Such targets can be a specific skill that the employee needs to master and be able to showcase, a concept they need to demonstrate a proper understanding of or a physical work assignment they need to perform. This is not very different from the Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude (KSA) concept which you can also consider helping you guide your targets and decide the rough structure of your training course.
Design Training Program
Once you set your objectives and form the rough structure of your program, you can start designing the training program. Nowadays, the most convenient and versatile way to deliver training is online. Even though there are plenty of third-party course providers ready to teach the skills involved, you might want to consider a learning management system (LMS) that can provide full control and flexibility with employee training.
An LMS is a digital platform or SaaS solution developed to create, administer, organize, and distribute training. With an LMS, you can manage all of your organization’s training from one central location. This applies to both e-courses and scheduled live sessions.
The purpose of an LMS is to facilitate the management of educational efforts. Examples include everything from onboarding and ongoing skills development to compliance training and certification.
Regardless of how you decide to design workplace training, you should think about the available media and training materials such as eLearning, training manuals, job aids, online materials, or workbooks, which can be used to help teach employees and engage them effectively.
Implement Your Program
After designing your program, promote it to employees and implement it accordingly. Just make sure to take care of any logistics ahead of time, like printing materials, scheduling, and testing technology so everything can work smoothly.
Use communication tools like internal email, employee portals, or company social networks to promote any new training courses. Keep management informed about new courses and encourage them to recommend members of their team to take the course.
During the training, make sure to explain the ground rules and convey your expectations before getting started. When implementing your training program and ensuring effective communication and management, you may also consider the option of designing custom HR software to streamline training administration and tracking for a more efficient and organized process.
Final Thoughts
Creating an employee training plan is essential for every business as it plays a key role in the success and growth of the organization. Everything from identifying your training needs to outlining the learning objectives is important to creating the right employee training program that will ensure that your workforce has the skill, knowledge, and motivation necessary to perform their jobs effectively.