Employee training is a program that aims to improve technical skills, efficiency, knowledge and value creation so that employees can perform their jobs more effectively. Employee training is only delivered on a specific time basis, and at set intervals, it is never continuous. Employee training improves the required skill set and helps in the development of employees as well as the organisation’s overall growth.
Employee training is required to keep the company employees up-to-date on the latest trends and technologies that are needed to compete in this environment. Employee training is necessary for both new and experienced employees. It allows new employees to become acquainted with the professions while also improving their job-related knowledge and skills.
Employee training is also required when an employee is transferred from one employment location to a different nature. It is possible to supply the employee with information on the new assignment, surroundings and organisational characteristics.
Why is employee training important?
During difficult economic circumstances, many businesses turn to employee training as one of their first cost-cutting measures. While training your employees may also cost money, it is an investment in your company’s future as well. Employee development and training are crucial to your company's long-term success. Employees must be efficient, adaptive, productive and develop their communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills.
EMPLOYEE TRAINING IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE-
- It improves employee performance- it gives the employees the knowledge they need to do their jobs well and positively impact the organisation. Ensure that your employees are aware of the duties and applications inside your company. They should be mindful of the objective and the skills necessary to achieve them.
- It increases engagement- Employment training provides engaging background to the Employees by enabling them to participate through training. Conclusion: there is the communication of ideas and internal workings discussed so that your employees are always up to date. The more enthusiastic they are about their job, the more willing they will be to devote time and effort to the organisation.
- It improves employee retention and growth- the hiring and onboarding process is well known for being costly and time-consuming. Improved staff retention is a significant outcome of more extraordinary performance and engagement through training. It will give more options to hire from the inside, which will lower your companies’ recruiting and onboarding expenditures.
- It brings consistency in training- it is very challenging to establish consistency within a company. However, training might help in closing the gap between your teams. Each employee has a basic understanding of their own and their teams of objectives, ensuring that everyone is on the same level. Furthermore, employees who receive the same training share the same responsibilities and are aware of their team exercise functions.
Best practices to implement successful employee training.
Training is an integral part of a corporate or professional setup. While onboarding a new employee, usually they undergo training to get fully equipped with the process and work responsibilities. A proper initiated training surely helps the new employee to get started efficiently. Also, there might be several scenarios where training might get wasted if employers follow old and outdated ways.
There might be several mistakes which an employer can make when it comes to following training methodologies. So, it is always better to script them down and follow the best foot forward.
1. Understanding Sentiments of Employee
I have seen specific situations where training is followed without keeping employee sentiments in check. It is essential to understand the time and tone of people and how they feel in a new organisation and then decide who will be the trainer to get them ready.
Trainers need not be blindfolded and should be influential supporters of the company.
2. Asking new Employees For Recommendations
Engage more with the new employee and ask them about ideas and any recommendations or feedback they would like to provide on the training process. Knowing their feedback is considered necessary. Eventually, they would feel important. Employers then accordingly work on areas where recommendations have been provided. Understanding when and where to spend money as an employer is important.
3. Importance Of Training
One mistake that many employers make is that they cannot make it clear the importance of training to new joiners. The “why” part. The second mistake is that they often try to provide too much information in a short span of time. The training should be simple, focused and something which can quickly be followed.
4. Trainers need to be expert
Do not follow traditional and boring Powerpoint slides. Try new and creative ideas, make videos.
The trainer giving the training should be an expert on the teaching material.
Practise on the job training; it can work if experts and the right people provide the training.
5. Design a Training Curriculum
The foundation of any good training is focused strategy and designed curriculum.
It should be a compelling one, but not mandatory. It should be a well-designed curriculum that is engaging from day one. New joiners should genuinely feel and engage, should follow the curriculum out of curiosity and genuine reasons. They should not do it feeling burdened.
What are emerging trends of employee training
While we are moving forward, there are various emerging employee training trends that are getting recognised. We should definitely try inculcating them in training programs. A few of them are:
1. Geofencing
This is one of the most convenient trends and extremely useful too. This uses your location and provides your information only to get the job done. It provides all the job-related training and development instantly.
2. Individualized training
There is no way a module which says one training for all new employees. Following a much more individualised approach will give your new employees much more opportunity for their own learning. Follow or create an individualised approach towards employees.
3. Soft skills training
Soft skills training is essential. According to a recent study by Stanford, 75% of long term job success depends on soft skills, and only 25 % depends on technical skills. Hence, soft skills are imperative.
4. Augmented & Virtual Reality
Virtual and augmented reality is the future of corporate training. VR is now expanding day by day to more such areas as a way to practice a skill before it is actually applied. Augmented reality offers extensive benefits.
Would you ever want to be a neurosurgeon's very first patient? Surely not. VR enables employees to follow a test-driven approach with minimal risk.
6. Virtual mentorship programs
There are chances when you are hiring fresh college graduates who have never done any job before. These college graduates will indeed be having excellent technical skills but mere knowledge or understanding about how to apply them. Through your online or mentorship programs, you can train inexperienced freshers to increase their productivity at the workplace.
This will create a significant impact and eventually help them in their corporate tenure and success rate in the longer run.
Types of employee training programs-
Experiential training that is focused on the unique needs of the employee is considered hands-on training. It takes place right on the job, which can help individuals transition smoothly into new or existing rules while also boosting their existing skills.
To remain competitive in today's environment, all businesses must evolve and progress. Implementing a development program so that staff can keep on top of the latest technologies and work as efficiently as possible is one approach to stay ahead of the pack and enhance profitability.
Various employee training programs give hands-on experience and training on various advanced tools and other fields according to the roles; those are:
- Excel Training- Excel knowledge promotes workplace effectiveness by allowing you to master essential Excel tools and functions that will improve efficiency and speed up your performance. Excel allows users to analyse, organise and evaluate quantitative data allowing managers and senior staff to make critical decisions that can affect the business with the knowledge they need.
Employees who are taught sophisticated Excel functions will present their data more effectively to senior management. It is also a necessary talent for individuals who want to work their way to the top.
- PowerPoint training- In the business world, presentation abilities are essential for success. The reasons behind these are straightforward because presentations are the lifeblood of most businesses. Whether you're giving an internal representation to your boss regarding the progress of a project or giving a sales presentation to a potential client, failing to do so can lose your job.
With the proper PowerPoint training, the professionals from all departments will be able to properly present their ideas and communicate properly while stating factual knowledge.
- Finance Training- financial training will equip you with the tools you need to assess how well your department is operating on its own compared to the rest of the company. Developing your financial abilities through financial training on a more granular level will help you appreciate how the job you add to your company’s financial health and information you may use to negotiate a raise, promotion, or another benefit boost.
A solid financial accounting can help you manage the thorny questions that often accompany these considerations. For example, it may help you determine whether an investment opportunity is appropriate for your financial objective, whether it be safety growth or a combination of both. It may also show you what people want from investments and how your actions can help them get it.
Benefits of employee training for Business-
As markets evolve and business settings become more competitive, more organisations recognise the importance of employee training. Employee training is no longer a luxury reserved for C-suite professionals, but rather it is an integral part of a company's overall growth.
Let's take a look at the list of benefits of employee training for businesses-
- It addresses internal weaknesses- Within a company, a lack of understanding of internal weaknesses can be dangerous. Thus, employee training and development allows them to educate on vital topics that will help them overcome and prevent businesses’ problems. It also fosters knowledge sharing as your employees learn from their management's past successes and failures.
- It makes the customers’ happiest- the most critical component of employee training and development is its positive impact on your business's success. If you put a good and better-trained employee, they can ultimately make more productive team members to provide better service to your customers. As an outcome, your client retention improves, and Happy customers stay longer and buy more. This has the potential to boost the growth of the company significantly.
- Helps in strengthening the company’s reputation- Employee training programs may be the key to more significant and more favourable client interaction. Better trained staff will have better goals and objectives, handle customer support issues more autonomously, and provide good boosts.
- It fosters new growth- Any businesses' primary goal is to achieve development and growth for the benefits they produce. Growth is executed if an organisation's entire workforce is committed to progress. To tackle the situation, skilled and ambitious employees are required. You are allowing your employees to learn and improve by providing training.
SCOPE-
There is an increased demand for higher performance which necessitates more effective methods for identifying, recruiting, measuring and improving worker training and education. Traditional or hierarchical organisation structures are also transforming to process-oriented and knowledge base models posing new challenges for both organisations and individuals to maximise organisations competitive advantage and meet new performance standards.
Training and development increase job skills and development in the attitudes of employees as well. As a result, workplace learning or training and development will allow more workers to come together and gain practical knowledge and learn new skills to do specific jobs.
Conclusion-
Training and development of employees is an organised activity to enhance employees’ technical skills and allow them to do particular jobs effectively and efficiently. It provides some job-related knowledge to the workers and systematically imparts skills among the workers to improve the productivity of your organisation and the workers.
Thus, employee training is a significant way of making an organisation a better place by providing safety training to the workers.