HOW TO MAKE A TRAINING PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY?
Not all trainings fit all businesses. Every company is a different planet, and the unique idiosincracy of each workplace should be taken into account when it comes to choosing the content, format and other characteristics of the training plan you prepare for your employees.
While many larger companies create and carry out their own training, other businesses may choose to externalize the responsability of organizing training: companies specialized in corporate training allow for lots of customization in order to fit the bill.
Why it’s important to tailor your training plan carefully
A training plan is a list of all the knowledge, skills and resources an employee needs to fulfill their job responsibilities. The term training plan usually refers to one of two situations: either onboarding training for new employees, or update training for existing employees to stay informed and educated about the newest trends in the industry. Investing in corporate training has proven to be incredibly beneficial, as it increases performance and greatly increases the chances that your talent will want to stay with you.
When training for companies isn’t carefully evaluated to fit the particularities of the company, employees and situation, however, the results can often be disappointing. Not just any training will do– investing even a little time and effort in determining what your company needs will save you a lot of trouble in the future.
Assessing the needs of your company
Factors such as employee skillsets and strengths, the mission and values of your company, the workplace culture and even the current situation of your industry will play a big role in defining what knowledge gaps are more pressing and crucial to the core of your activities. Limiting the scope is important too: you can’t cover it all with one course.
A skills gap analysis can give you information by helping you identify the skills that will boost performance the most, increase employee engagement and ease at their job, or provide your managers with leadership skills. Assigning goals and concrete success metrics to work towards will greatly facilitate success.
Refining the details of your corporate training plan
After settling on a solid training plan with limited and clear objectives, determining the type of corporate training is the next step: in-person training is not the same as online courses for companies, and the results of group vs. one-to-one training will achieve the same goals in very different ways.
Fleshing out a balanced outline for your training plan will ensure there are no gaps in the knowledge acquired. Experts in the field will advise best on what materials and topics should be covered and how to best translate them into real-world applications and exercises, so that employees walk away from the training with something more than a vague guidebook on a topic they are not quite confident about.
The preparation of learning materials is a time-consuming and expensive task, which most companies often delegate. Corporate training companies have a set plan that has been tested and proven to excel at reaching the learning objectives and guaranteeing positive outcomes for the company, and are often able to tailor these courses to the distinctive needs and ways of conducting work in every company.
Implementing the plan and asking your team for feedback
When implementing the training plan for your corporate training, the devil is in the details: it’s important to clarify expectations and very clearly organize the availability of time, resources and materials required. Monitoring progress throughout the course with everyone involved, from tutors and experts to learners, is vital to ensuring the plan actually translates into the real, expected outcomes.
Checking with your team before and after launching the training plan is an unskippable step. After all, this is about your employees’ needs: they know themselves better than anyone! The feedback should cover everything from the effectiveness of the instructor’s methods to whether the learning objectives are partially or completely reached, and employees feel that they have acquired the skills the program promised.
Keep in mind that asking employees beforehand about their own learning methods, the problems or skills gaps they perceive in their daily work, and their opinions on which training will most benefit the company, will save you a lot of potential problems and even allow you to skip ahead during the planning phase.
For companies that don’t have time to assess their situation and needs, this service is also often offered by companies specialized in corporate training: external audits are a valuable tool, as they include the analysis of all the required data and use the education company’s previous experience and insight to make the best assessment of what type of training plan your company needs.
