5 Simple and Effective Ways to Improve Workplace Training

With the rise of technological advancements and employees who are becoming more vocal about their need for meaningful work experiences and growth opportunities, businesses are being forced to reexamine their approach to employee engagement and talent retention.

Although most companies provide training to new hires and existing staff, few understand the true value of continuous learning and development. Not only do ongoing learning opportunities increase the level of engagement among employees, but they also contribute to lower turnover rates. Employees with skills such as technology literacy, innovation, and time management are in high demand and if you want your company to prosper, it’s crucial to invest in ongoing training programs.

If you don’t want to see employees leaving your company to grow somewhere else, below we share 5 simple yet effective ways to keep up with workplace training and achieve business expansion and profitability.

Communicate With Employees to Learn More

To provide your employees with good learning opportunities relevant to their needs and positions, leaders and managers must first identify the needs and goals of their employees. Knowing how to ask the right questions in a relaxed setting can be an excellent way to hear employees’ opinions and suggestions, and communicate openly.

You can do this through informal one-on-one meetings with each team member and use the time to check in on their progress, any challenges they might face, hear about the projects they’re working on, slowly segue into asking them more about what they like or dislike about their roles, and the skills they’re keen on learning and developing.

The most important thing to do during these sessions is to listen closely and try to understand what your team member is saying rather than waiting for your turn to speak. Use what you hear to take actionable steps and give them the tools they need to succeed in their roles and become more engaged and invested in the company. Start by developing a concise plan for each of them and teach them how to stop bad habits so they can break any bad working habits and instead learn which are the healthy practices that work best for them.

Provide Online Training

If you want to make a shift and motivate your employees more, try out new exciting ways to train them. One effective way is to transfer to online training as it can create a fantastic learning experience, both for existing and new employees. By using an LMS solution, for example, you can develop your employees’ skills, provide them with the right knowledge to carry out their tasks and develop activities that are accessible and structured.

A learning management system is a great cost-effective tool that companies can use to create interactive courses for an effective learning process. With an LMS, employees can receive access to online courses, and benefit from the interactive features of online training, which all help in accumulating and retaining knowledge easily.

Consider Cross-training

If you feel that you have a great employee training program at your workplace, then you should consider cross-training. This is a strategy that’s aimed at helping your team members acquire soft and hard skills to manage more than one role and it’s particularly beneficial for smaller companies that cannot afford to lose employees.

However, larger organizations also benefit from cross-training as it helps enhance innovation, creativity, and productivity. Employees who have a good understanding of how different departments in your company function are better positioned to cooperate and think of creative solutions to problems.

When you train employees from different departments, they may be most suitable to tackle difficulties individually. As a plus, individuals who undergo cross-training will gain leadership skills needed to train other employees and assist everyone in meeting the company’s goals.

Incentivize Learning

Incentivizing training could be a perfect idea to enhance workplace training. You can do this by including a mindset of learning into your corporate culture by offering your employees more opportunities to join training problems to gain more knowledge and education. Those who will persist and finish the specific employee training program can, for instance, be rewarded with a bonus, a promotion, or even a salary raises.

Incentivizing learning can help employees acquire the skills necessary for improving engagement and productivity levels. Even though some courses may not be a part of the job position’s requirements, they can be tremendously advantageous for the employees’ personal and professional development.

Measure the Outcomes

A crucial final step is to measure the results of your training and development strategies.  Successful companies make sure to find out what impact the strategies had and then decide which ones they want to continue implementing.

Measure employee feedback data against previously set metrics and goals and then evaluate both successes and failures when figuring out how to improve your workplace training and drive employee engagement.

Final Thoughts

One of the biggest challenges for companies today is training new and existing employees. By implementing these tips, you’ll make sure your employees gain new skills and that they’ll be better equipped to do their job to the best of their ability.