Effective workplace training is a huge part of keeping your employees working at their best. Whether it’s to learn new skills or keep on top of recent industry developments, training is vital to both employers and employees. In a recent survey from online business print providers Instaprint, over half of the workers (56%) said that they’d leave their current role if they were not offered further development opportunities. Almost one-third (31%) said they had previously left positions for this reason.
Despite the importance of training to business success and employee satisfaction, employers and managers are not meeting expectations, with just 59% of workers saying they are satisfied with their current training offer. Instantprint’s employee survey has highlighted how this can be improved.
1. Stay up-to-date with your mandate training
Mandate training is training that companies are legally required to provide. It covers information such as health and safety and fire training. Mandate training was selected by respondents as the second most desired training topic.
Start your training program by checking you are up to date with all the training you are mandated to carry out. Once you’ve met all the requirements on this, you’ll have a better idea of the time and money you’ll have to invest in other training.
2. Introduce Personal Development Plans (PDPs)
Personal development was rated as the top reason employees wanted training. Personal development will mean different things to different people. This is why it’s important to create individual, tailored Personal Development Plans (PDPs) for each of your staff members.
Have line managers sit down with their teams to pinpoint goals that address weak spots and enable each individual to reach their career aspirations. From there, set realistic goals and assign any resources needed for achieving them. Build regular one-to-ones into your business to keep tabs on how PDPs are progressing.
3. Introduce on-the-job training
On-the-job training was chosen as the most effective form of training by over 4 in 10 workers (43%). This form of training is a great time and cost-effective solution for workplace training. By allowing employees to be more hands-on, they learn new skills from either external advisors or senior staff members, completing the tasks in a real work scenario. Often, this can be more effective than listening to speakers and offers the opportunity to assess whether training has been successful in real-time.
4. Initiate a coaching or mentoring system at your business
Coaching or mentoring was the second most popular form of training found by the survey, with one-quarter (25%) selecting it as their favorite. Coaching and mentoring schemes offer numerous benefits for employers and employees.
For employees, having a mentor within their company means having a known point of contact to discuss issues with. For employers, coaching and mentoring is a fantastic use of existing resources, utilizing corporate knowledge to train a new generation of workers.
5. Provide e-learning opportunities
E-learning is a popular training method among employees, with 15% saying it’s how they learn most effectively. Learning from electronic resources lets workers fit training around their day-to-day work and also means they can move at their own pace.
From the employer’s perspective, e-learning is great because it removes a lot of costly resources that training usually takes up. A lot of great e-learning programs are available for free, or for much lower prices than hiring an external speaker. In addition, because workers can choose when to complete e-learning objectives, it removes the need for you to block out large portions of time for training.
When it comes to workplace training, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. A mix of these methods should help your business make the most of its training investment. Talk to your employees about what they want, develop their PDPs, and help them achieve these through the method discussed above.
About the author: Hannah Rogers is a Content Specialist with Search Laboratory. She has expertise in HR, regularly writing about employee motivation, company cultures, and other related topics.
