According to a recent LinkedIn study on workplace learning, training for soft skills is the number one priority for those in talent development roles. The study also reveals that 68% of employees prefer to learn on the job and that 94% of personnel would stay longer with an employer that created an employee training plan and invested in their careers.
Employee training plans improve employee performance and satisfaction. But, conceiving and implementing an effective strategy can be time-consuming and draining.
Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all employee training plan. The most successful strategies encompass several elements. The following are fundamentals to consider when building your unique employee training strategy.
Establish Needs
Before you can create an effective employee training plan, you should determine what’s necessary and why it’s required. Start by identifying the goals you want to meet. They should be consistent and correspond with your organization’s short- and long-term goals, vision, and mission.
Pinpoint the instructional requirements for specific departments as well as individual roles. Working to define your target audience keeps unique personalities and learning styles top of mind. Narrowing the goals around that audience help prioritize what needs attention first. Determine the current baseline for both productivity and quality.
Assess employee knowledge of your organization’s general operations and their specific responsibilities. Having a clear understanding of who you’re creating a plan for and why will strengthen and clarify your strategy.
Include the Team
Engaging your workforce in the planning process has many advantages. Organizations that value employee opinions see lower turnover rates, fewer safety incidents, and increased productivity.
Involving employees in your training development can expose potential issues before they arise. It might also reveal information that will help you create and deliver effective instruction.
Talk to staff members individually or in small groups. Send out surveys or questionnaires to gather qualitative data, making them anonymous if you feel it would help employees open up more.
Pick your team’s collective brain to discover pertinent information you might have overlooked. This feedback can help you find out what would make employees more confident in their jobs and the individual tasks they’re expected to perform.
Learn what would help improve team performance. Uncover the learning methods that work best for the majority of your company’s workforce. These details can help you create an employee training strategy that will deliver the desired results.
Determine the Best Time to Train
If employees often lament that there isn’t enough time in the day, they’re not alone. A recent study found that the average employee only has twenty-four minutes a week available to devote to learning. That’s less time than the average lunch break, and we all know how little can get done in that time.
The learning solution you devise should fit the schedules of your team members. Your training plan should have on-demand training available for employees to train when their workday allows for it. This flexibility keeps employees from having to drop what they’re doing to attend predetermined group training meetings.
Tracking and Evaluations
It’s essential to determine how you’ll gauge instructional exercises as part of your training programs. After determining your objectives, establish the best metrics that correspond with these goals. You should have plans in place to measure training success and how well your team members are retaining the information.
Evaluations help you find opportunities to change delivery methods, improve training content, and identify training approaches that aren’t working.
Finally, look for a way to provide documentation that meets specialized development obligations required by law, regulation, or professional organizations like OSHA, DOT, or HIPPA requirements.
Be sure to provide a plan for continued education, as well. Ongoing training guarantees that your team’s skills and knowledge are current. Refresher courses ensure that information an employee might have missed isn’t overlooked.
Choose the Right Training Platform
Your training strategy should include a plan for the educational delivery system you’ll use. Look for a Learning Management System that can deliver engaging, personalized experiences.
The ideal platform will also offer training with immediate usefulness so employees can transfer the information they’ve absorbed to their day-to-day tasks and occasional job duties.
You should also look for a delivery system that provides ease of use, flexibility, and customization to tailor the content to your workforce’s unique needs. Choose a deployment method that makes sense for your organization.
WestNet Learning is an all-in-one LMS solution that can help you during planning, implementation, and delivery of all your on-site training needs. Unlike other LMS options, WestNet Learning allows you to customize coursework and manage multiple sites or organizations with ease.
An LMS like WestNet offers you the means to certify employees that have completed required coursework quickly, efficiently and accurately. You can also re-certify employees using the platform and track their training timeline. You can also document previous certifications to access them whenever necessary in the future.
Even if you already have an LMS, WestNet Learning provides content migration and can assist with transferring historical training data. All you have to do is export your data to an Excel file, and we’ll handle the rest.
If you’d like to discover how an LMS can give you a leg up on creating and deploying an effective employee training plan, reach out now to schedule a 1-on-1 strategy discussion with one of our experts.
WestNet Learning is an all-in-one LMS solution to train employees, increase employee productivity, and address safety needs with ease. With customizable eCourse builders, analytics, reporting, certification, and re-certification tracking, WestNet’s LMS will help you manage staff training and increase course completion rates.
If you’d like to learn more about how to efficiently engage and train employees on a mass scale, schedule a 1-on-1 employee training strategy session.
