In order to develop a practical employee training program, it’s important to look at the most common employee training techniques first before moving on to more sophisticated methods. Although such common training techniques offer nothing new or groundbreaking, they are quite reliable for teaching specific skills and concepts, and for companies that have yet to develop their own employee development plan template, such techniques can be very helpful because they offer examples of what works in employee training.
What Are The Most Common Employee Training Techniques Available?
If your organization is looking for a few employee training techniques then here are three of the most techniques around.
Classroom Lectures
This is the most basic and most common employee training technique around. It consists of putting your trainees inside a classroom with an instructor, and making them learn what they need to learn in a traditional learning environment.
For a very long time, classroom-based learning was synonymous with employee training, because there were no other alternatives. Despite its conventional approach, however, classroom lectures remain very popular among companies. This is because lectures are very straightforward and can be used to teach specific skills without too much hassle. For example, emergency, health and safety protocols are best taught inside a classroom because they allow for thorough explanations as well as question and answer portions. Likewise, learning specific skills, like operating a new software, is also best carried out in a classroom environment.
Despite its versatility, however, it’s also important to remember that classroom lectures do have their limitations. For one thing, they are not very useful for teaching social or communication skills. Furthermore, classroom training requires employees to sacrifice a portion of their time for training. So if you do take this training method, be sure to remember its downsides.
Mentoring
Mentoring is among the most common and well known employee training techniques around. The most common and well-known variation of this training techniques is on the job training, which requires trainees to learn their work by doing, while being supervised by senior personnel.
Unlike classroom-based lectures, mentoring does not always require an employee training plan. The trainees learn what they need to learn as they go along, which makes the whole learning process very hands-on and practical. The only problem, however is that due to informal approach of this technique, their results are rather difficult to quantify and analyze. Therefore, you should only attempt this technique if your company adapts really well to informal methods.
Social Learning
Social learning techniques are not designed to improve employee performance directly. Instead, their main purpose is to help personnel interact with their colleagues, so as to avoid unwanted behavior, workplace-related conflict or potential lawsuits. A few good examples of social learning include diversity training, gender sensitivity training and workplace interaction training.
Although the effects of social learning is difficult to quantify it is nevertheless one of the most common employee training techniques around, and their approach may be integrated into any training program with little difficulty.