This post was originally published by Jenny Boling on lessonly.com
From corporate universities to music lessons for street performers on Instagram, it seems that everyone is teaching something nowadays. But how do you create an effective employee training plan template?
If you take a closer look at the most recent list of America’s Best Startup Employers you’ll notice that these companies have several things in common. One of them is an opportunity for employees to grow and develop, which is truly inspiring. On the other hand, ineffective training can only drain your resources and avert people from the word “training” itself.
What we do know is that company culture isn’t trainable — either prospective new hires are a fit, or they aren’t. But skills are something that can be sharpened over time. If you hire the right people, they’ll likely be eager to learn and prove themselves. This approach does, however, come with some baggage: training. Your training design needs to be exceptional. After all, if you’re willing to overlook the fact that your new hire may be a bit green (although a great cultural fit), then you also need to be willing to give them the tools they need to succeed within a corporate training plan template. And training doesn’t come with a low price tag: In fact, the average cost-per-hire is almost $4,000.
What makes a good employee training plan?
Basic steps in developing a training program in an organization add to your employee onboarding program that will result in well-trained new hires.
Set some goals: A good first step of how to develop a training program for employees, before training even begins, is to identify what the needs are and what gaps exist in employee job performance. Goals are essential and best when they’re specific and measurable. For example, use action verbs, such as “Increase employees’ efficiency by xyz%”.
Determine your target audience: Who are you training and how many are there? What are their positions and what is their previous education and work experience? What is going to be the most useful topics in their position and are there any special requests? You’ll want to develop it for a certain reason as well as for a certain target audience. Before you proceed with a development plan example, have a closer look at the people who are going to be your learners.
Align company culture: “We’re all in different roles, departments, and walks of life, but we’re one team. We support, challenge, and care about each other” is our motto at Lessonly. To ensure both managerial support and contextualize the lessons contained within, your training program should be in sync with the company and what it values. How does it fit into the company culture? Does it relate to both long- and short-term goals? Is there a demonstrable positive impact on the company, its operational efficiency, and its bottom line?
Don’t make it boring: Little in life feels worse than putting time and effort into something, only to discover that people aren’t paying any attention to it. A staff training and development plan template won’t be very effective at all if your employees are tuned out and disengaged from the lessons at hand. Creating lessons that are hands-on or involve trainee participation, as opposed to just reciting information and hoping it sticks, are a good start. By making sure engagement is high, you help ensure that learning retention is high, too.
Pack it with immediately relevant info: Speaking of learning retention, did you know that most new things learned will be forgotten if not practiced in a relatively short time frame? By providing training and then putting that training to use in real-world applications, you’re helping to reinforce the lessons. If opportunities to put the training to use do not arise organically, you can assign specialized tasks designed to draw on the new knowledge in a real-world context to help make sure that the lessons stick.
Regularly review and adapt: If new hires leave quickly and supervisors feel like the training process isn’t very effective, be proactive. Do supervisors and managers feel like their new employees are prepared to work after they’ve finished their training? Tweak (or, if necessary, completely overhaul) the training process. Determine the gaps in your hiring process so that you can easily refine it.
Put your employees to the test: Give your team a chance to put theory into practice. Plunking a stack of manuals in front of new hires and expecting them to memorize and apply that over the space of a week is rarely, if ever, the best course of action. Instead, give them the opportunity to review and then use that knowledge in a semi-supervised atmosphere.
The truth is, there are benefits to well-planned training programs
- a quicker path to productivity
- improved employee retention rates
- lasting engagement
- long-term profitability
Now doesn’t that all sound nice?
Quality training = a direct impact on your bottom line.
By developing an employee training plan template, you can set your new hires up for success and continue building on the company success you have already started. Individual employee training plan templates can take various forms, such as lectures, e-books, video lessons, realistic simulations, interactive assessments that look more like games, and the list goes on. A good training program includes as many types of activities as possible to retain learners’ attention and appeal to different learning styles.
Simplify employee training
We have a powerful template already set-up and ready to use, no matter the size of your company. Click here to learn more and get building. Or, learn more about Lessonly by Seismic.
