Whether you want to hire new employees or to improve the productivity of the current ones, training and development will be required if you want to have a productive and functional company. Although we can all develop and improve our skills on our own as well, this is usually done by professionals who deal with different types of training to help the employees acquire better skills that will help them give a better performance at work. Employees can have soft or hard skills and both can be improved by adjusting someone’s attitude or simply teaching them new technical stuff. Training is usually short-term and development long-term activity.
The benefits of employees training and development
No matter if your staff is fully trained or professional, there are always some gaps in knowledge or some questions that remain unanswered. To fill these gaps you can assign training to them that should lead to obtaining maximum benefits for your company. Your employees become better at what they do and also more productive, so your company obtains an advantage against the competition. Also, engaging in your employees day to day activities and following their improvements can make them attracted more, and retain them in the company for much longer. This way you spend money on training your current employees but you spare money on constantly training new ones and long term it’s an economical solution. One more thing that proves this is that people mostly say that they leave their jobs because they don’t have enough ways to improve their skills and learn new stuff. This lack of development opportunities is sometimes more important than just a salary. In the end, the best-trained employees can become seniors and pass the knowledge to the newly hired ones, and that’s the way to save money as well.
Business Coaching for Creatives can be a very important skill if there is someone who lacks business knowledge but is very skilled.
Steps in training development
Not all companies need to reinforce the same skills in their employees so it is necessary to see what is needed for better performance and outcomes. This way you can create a successful employee training and development. Not all the employees are good at the same stuff so each one of them should be analyzed and their best assets should be developed more. That way, they will be more productive by doing what they’re good at. This leads to money-saving and creating future leaders. Also, your brand can acquire a very good reputation so take advantage of this. If necessary, use professional help to organize all this.
Methods of training
It is important to mention some methods of training as well. Instructor-led training includes a person that teaches a course to a group of people or an individual. It can be in-person or virtual. It is so-called classroom training. The virtual training is held through some platform like Zoom and the participants don’t have to be in the same room. There is also e-learning that can be synchronous or asynchronous. The latter includes RTO materials that can be pre-recorded, like lectures, quizzes, etc. Microlearning, like how-to videos, is short materials usually available to many people. Simulations include perpetrating actions and seeing what feedback we can obtain. On-the-job training includes training while working and not going to another place like a classroom. Coaching requires soft skills that enhance the performance of the team. Mentoring is usually done between juniors and seniors and it includes some goals that are to be achieved in a certain amount of time. In the end, blended learning is a mix of more than one of the aforementioned methods.
Types of training and development
The types of training and development depend on the needs of the company. Let’s mention the most common:
- Technical training is based on technical products
- Soft skills training includes the development of emotional intelligence, teamwork, creativity, etc
- Compliance training involved juridical topics, like training on sexual harassment at the workplace
- Safety training mostly goes about workplace safety
- Management development focus on training managers on effectivity similar to leadership development
- Customer service development has a goal to provide an excellent customer experience and to do so it must train the employees by that
- Customer education training teaches clients how to use some services of the company
- Corporate training involves already employed people learning new skills
- Onboarding is similar to the previous one and it teaches employees about the necessary skill to succeed at work
- Sales enablement mostly goes about sales training
To sum it up, training and development are crucial processes that prevent monotony at the workplace, make employees more productive and satisfied with their options at work, make them more attached to the company and that way gives you future seniors that will continue with the good work. Make your strategy based on your goals, find the resources that you need, or hire people who can do it properly and use the adequate method. Know your employees and develop the best of their virtues. This is the best way to have a successful business long term.
