Most business owners know that employees are crucial to success. However, with plenty of focus on attracting top talent, many companies fail to consider what happens next. Once you have found the best people for your team, you need to give them the opportunity to thrive – and this means providing adequate employee training. Not only is this key to job satisfaction, but it also makes your business more competitive. Here is how to successfully nurture professional development within your organization.
The Importance of Employee Training
As an employer, you have the ability to bring out the best in your team. Not only that, but it is in your best interest; investing in your employees’ professional development will have direct a positive your overall business. With a solid training strategy in place, you can:
- Boost employee motivation: Training and development can be a great motivator. Employees feel like they are constantly learning, progressing and achieving beyond their daily tasks, resulting in greater job satisfaction and desire to come to work.
- Raise company performance: The more skills and expertise your employees have, the more competent you can expect your team to be. Effective training ensures higher performance on both a personal and company-wide level, giving your business a competitive edge.
- Encourage loyalty: Providing your employees with plenty of opportunity for learning shows that you care about their development and are willing to invest in them. This in turn helps to encourage loyalty and ensure a good employee retention rate.
- Promote internal mobility: Hiring is both a costly and time-consuming process; it makes much better sense to invest in your current employees and promote internal mobility. Providing adequate and ongoing training allows your talent to progress within your company, making it easier to fill senior positions.
How to Implement an Effective Training Program
It is one thing to recognise the benefits of employee training, but making it a core part of your business is another challenge entirely. Effective training is not simply a case of sending your team on a course every year – it’s about creating a culture of continuous development. Training needs will vary from company to company, so it is essential to formulate a strategy that suits your business. At the same time, try to adopt a flexible approach that can easily be adapted to each employee. For optimal results, consider these three key steps to an effective training program.
Step One – Identify Training Needs and Skills Gaps
Before you invest in any resources, make sure you have a solid understanding of the training needs and skills gaps that need to be addressed. Start by considering the company as a whole: what are your business goals, and what kinds of skills will help to achieve them? Identify areas of weakness within the company. For example, perhaps there is a noticeable lack of IT competency across the board, or communication could be improved. Likewise, consider your company’s core values and the skills that serve them – then factor these into your core training program.
In addition to general company-wide training, it is important to focus on the individual. Look at each employee’s strengths and weaknesses and consider how you can address them with tailored training. Of course, no two people are the same, so targeted training is absolutely essential. Ideally, you will help each and every member of your team to build on their strengths, overcome their weak points and acquire new skills. Whilst nurturing personal development, you ensure that every single employee is a valuable asset to your business.
Step Two – Use a Mixture of Tools and Techniques
Thanks to technology, training no longer has to be a boring classroom affair. With the right tools, you can offer training that is engaging, interactive and, above all, effective. What’s more, with the rise of cloud-based HR software solutions, companies needn’t spend a fortune on external training. A cloud-based suite like Talentsoft enables you to create an entire learning community for your company on a single platform – be it educational videos, online modules or user-generated content. Rather than simply sending all your employees on a course, this makes training a bit more collaborative whilst allowing everyone to go at their own pace. Ultimately, the more varied and engaging your training materials are, the more effective they will be, so try to mix things up as much as possible.
Step Three – Track Progress
Just as important as providing adequate training is to track progress. To ensure that your employees are truly benefiting from their professional training, set both long and short-term targets and be ready to provide feedback. The goal is not to monitor your employees or create a school-like environment; rather, aim to provide structured, ongoing training with measurable results. Discuss personal targets with each team member and devise a training program that works towards these. This will keep your employees motivated and really enable them to see how they can benefit from quality professional training. At the same time, this allows you to monitor the success of your training strategy and to make improvements along the way.
Even the most skilled and talented employees can benefit from training, whether they are new to your team or have been part of the business from day one. Quality professional training keeps employees motivated and gives them the opportunity to reach their full potential – which can only be good news for your company. Employee training is one of the most worthwhile investments you can make and, with a solid strategy in place, you will soon reap the rewards.
