Staff is the crucial aspect of every company, thus, investing in staff equals investing in your company’s future success. Many companies worldwide have started to recognize the importance of employee training and development. At the same time, many companies have also realized it but have no idea where to start. There are plenty of things to consider in order to be able to develop an effective plan for employee training and development. Training and developing your employees has many benefits, including the fact that it makes you more advanced than the competition as well as that it has a positive impact on employees, where they feel more connected to the company and hence, more motivated to perform their job the best way they can. Take a look at how you can organize effective employee training and development as well as the popular forms and the distinctive benefits.
1. Training vs development
Both training and development are defined as a continual process in which companies provide their employees with the possibility to acquire new competencies and knowledge they need in order to reach their full potential and optimal work performance. These terms are often used interchangeably, even though they don’t encompass the same things. On one hand, training involves teaching employees to perform a certain task or procedure. It mainly focuses on short-term goals and skills such as training new employees how to use your billing system or introducing some new tools. On the other hand, development is a broader term encompassing skills that will be beneficial in the long run. An example would be starting a mentorship program.
2. How to create an effective plan
It has been noted that companies that focus on employee training and development from the moment they hire them, see much better results in terms of future performance and dedication. So, we can see how training, development and getting proper rto materials are a top priority.
You should definitely start with targeting soft skills. This is a need as the industries are going through development and changes at a fast pace and effective communication is the key to success. As the workplace is highly diversified, the training and development program should be as well. Every employee is an individual with a different set of skills and they should be analyzed in terms of specific skills they possess, technological fluency and approach to learning. Furthermore, training should be delivered through multiple platforms and it should be dynamic, interactive, personalized as well as providing constant support. The development plan should be strategic.
3. The most popular methods
There are a few methods (both traditional and modern ones) that have been used over the years to promote employee training and development. Let’s start with classroom-based training, which usually takes place at a certain venue and lasts for a few days. There are usually presentations involved, case studies as well as insight into the company’s policy issues. It is beneficial as you can deliver knowledge to a larger number of employees at the same time, at one cost. This method can be quite costly due to hiring a venue, catering and paying for transportation. Also, many employees find it boring. Another type of effective training method is interactive learning. It involves participants actively by engaging them in simulations, role plays, games and quizzes. Employees are able to retain the information better when presented in this way. However, it can be time-consuming. On-the-job training is considered to be one of the most effective ways of training employees to do their job. As far as some new, modern methods are concerned, social and online learning comes in handy. Social learning involves learning by observing and imitating others, while online training involves effective training through different kinds of webinars, videos and tutorials.
4. Some of the benefits
There are plenty of benefits that employee training and development brings. They include improved performance as it helps employees become more skilled and confident, higher satisfaction and motivation, which drives employees to give 100% of themselves, improved loyalty and retention of people, as people are satisfied and don’t have the need to search for something better, smaller skills gap, efficient knowledge transfer, enhanced company reputation as well as profit increase and cost savings, to name a few.
Investing in training and development programs is an effective way to ensure well-trained and satisfied staff who will help your company move up the corporate ladder.
Jack Kewell
Jack Kewell is writer, science editor, naturalist, entrepreneur. He is focused on writing and illustrating books. Also, he is a regular contributor on mountaintechblog