One of the biggest challenges of every company is sending new and existing employees to training and development programs. What makes it even difficult is convincing and getting the commitment of management to invest in training and development.
Here are seven ways to make your organization better through training and development programs.
- Set your standards
Before starting an initiative, stakeholders will always want to know what will come out of training and development programs and what would be our basis in determining if it’s going to be successful or not.
Some companies benchmark with their competitors or join organizations with common interests like the Asian Association of School Human Resource and Management Practitioners Development Inc. Surely, you would like to know more about what others are doing and whether or not you’re doing the same or less.
You can start by getting feedback from your corporate social media pages to know more about what customers are saying about you, your products or services, or perhaps conduct surveys to know more about your weaknesses and strengths to further support your request for training and development programs.
Most startup companies will agree that the most important thing to do after launching a business is training new employees. Failure to do so might make a lasting negative impression of you or your company to clients.
2. Ask your employees
Your employees are the people who would know most about your business, about how your company is performing or that there are organizational needs worth looking into as soon as possible. They are the best people, who know what’s going on and what needs to be changed. Employees when asked about these questions will often feel empowered and provide you valuable feedback. Hold focus groups to identify these needs.
- Ask your employees what is expected of them, why they need to do it and if they know how to do it.
- Your employees want to be trained by a subject matter expert. It is important that the trainers are trained so that they’d know what and how to train, and how to make the training interesting, relevant and engaging.
3. Align training with management’s operating goals
It is best that the training and development programs are aligned to organizational goals, like productivity, quality and customer satisfaction. Once goals are identified, you can easily design and identify training and development programs.
Identify the departmental employees who excel in different fields, like Legal for compliance, marketing and sales for quality and human resource or administration for supervision / management training.
It is very important that onboarding procedures and new hire training are conducted immediately so that employees are knowledgeable and focused on standards and customer satisfaction.
Send your heads and supervisors to training to improve their communication and coaching skills.
4. Plan your training program and do trial runs.
Every new business starts with a strategic plan. Make sure you draft a plan for your training effort that includes all the classic elements:
- Define the objectives of the training, the action plan, and the expected outputs.
- Propose a realistic budget.
- Outline the benefits of the training for the organization so that all stakeholders can understand the ‘What’s in it for me?’ parts.
- Announce the training program and send out invites to participants.
- Run trial programs to carefully selected participants, and take notes of observation on areas that needs improvement.
- Refine your training program for the next batch of trainees.
5. Institutionalize your training.
Make sure that the institution adapts your training program once you find it successful. It is best that participants are satisfied with what they have learned, and found it to be useful for the workplace.
Ensure that training and development programs are mandatory requirements for promotions.
Celebrate when someone completes training and clearly state what that means to the organizations growth opportunities.
Plan more learning opportunities for employees. Get them involved. Make them trainers or subject matter experts.
6. Innovate
Use technology in training. Get the experts in.
Engage your trainees with the use of apps, tablets, smartphones, and digital cameras.
7. Measure the outcomes
You should measure the results to make sure that objectives are being met.
Train all employees on how to evaluate work performances. Learn how to give constructive feedback. Teach the heads and supervisors how to coach. Ignite their passion to coach and mentor their subordinates.
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Benchmark Consulting’s training and development programs can help you and your team to succeed. For more details, you may contact Benchmark Consulting, the country’s premiere coaching, training, and leadership development company, at (02) 812 7177 or email us at info@benchmark-consulting.com.ph.
