How to Create an Employee Training Plan That Works

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According to recent studies, most organizations tend to come up with a training plan for new employees only. Though this equips the novices with the necessary skills, research has also shown that employee training at all job levels has a direct impact on the performance of the employees and to the financial benefits of the organization. After the orientation and on-boarding of the employees, it is crucial to provide an opportunity for personal development both inside and outside the organization premises. A good plan affirms your employees that you are committed to hiring and retaining those employees with marketable skills. Granted, below is how you develop a long-term plan.

Creating a Successful Employee Training Plan

There are a myriad of ways through which you can develop an employee training program; whichever one of the employee training techniques you choose requires time, money and patience. Any form of training is an investment in the organization and brings out productivity and profits, but only when it is well planned and accurately implemented. First, the goals of the training should be well stipulated in a way that each employee knows what is expected of them after a session of training. This can be made possible by implementing various employee training methods. These details include goals, relationship between the goals set and the organization, knowledge and skills expected, developmental activities to be carried out, resources and completion date among others. Employees should be allowed to take part in determining the knowledge, the skills and the abilities to be developed during the training. The training should involve activities that help strengthen the knowledge and the skills learned. As previously mentioned, employee training should be a long term process. The organization should not assume the employees come to the training empty but instead use the knowledge, skills and the abilities they already possess as resources to enlighten others.   The approach used during the training should assume a problem-centered and practical approach that uses real life examples. All new lessons should be connected to the past experiences of the employee. After each training session, the employees should be allowed to practice and reinforce their skills before proceeding to the next session. To make the learning enjoyable and pique the interest of the employees, the learning environment should be friendly, less formals and supportive. With the above components in mind, you know what you require to set up an effective employee training plan. for more information please reffer to our employee training videos.

3 Major Steps in Laying out an Effective Training Plan

1.Assess the Needs of your Company

The first step in laying out your training plan is determining whether the knowledge and the skills of your employees are in line with what your organization wants. For instance, do the supervisors need help delegating duties and foreseeing the day to day running of business? To this end, you need to evaluate: > The objectives of the company; its strengths and its weaknesses > The duties of each employee > Feedback from employees on what they feel they need > Regulatory requirements governing your company   Conduct interviews, questionnaires and skills tests to a couple of employees to determine which areas they are confident and skilled in and in which they are weak and require training. The first step in laying out a plan ends with determining the length of the program, laying out a schedule and determining the experts you will require to implement the plan. The experts can be consultants from outside the company who are experienced in what you need trained.  

2.Understand your Employees

The topics and the objectives you include in your plan will be dictated by the expertise, the interest and the educational levels of the employees. To this end, you need to do a survey on basic employee information. Garnering basic employee information from their age, past experiences and such enables you to create a bespoke plan that will yield an effective training program. Take for instance training on email etiquette. While this training is necessary for entry-level employees, it wouldn’t be relevant for managers who have been on the job for at least 5 years. Surveying your employees helps you pinpoint the types of learners they are. While some employees learn best through visuals and can understand videos, written instructions and illustrations, others learn best through step by step practice settings. Still, you will find that some employees will understand simple oral instructions and can learn through audio conferences. The information you collect in this step will assist you choose the most appropriate method for each group of trainees and the materials, such as employee training software, that you will need for the entire training program.

3.Tailor a Curriculum

The last step in planning for a training program involves coming up with a curriculum. According to Stephen Lieb, a trainer must understand how his/her subjects learn best. When assembling the material and the resources you will need for the program, you must remember the components of a well laid plan as discussed above. This will help you achieve the specific results you need from the training program and your employee training plan will be a success.
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Jason is the Lead Author & Editor of TrainingStation Blog. Jason established the Training Station blog to create a source for news and discussion about some of the issues, challenges, news, and ideas relating to training, learning and development.