An effective employee training program can be helpful to any business. Like vacation time and group insurance, training is a benefit that can attract qualified job seekers to your company and help retain the staff you already have. 

Training not only allows your team to remain productive, but it can also improve your team’s morale. Employees appreciate a business that prioritizes their professional development, helps them learn new abilities and teaches them skills to stay up-to-date in their field.

This guide will help you decide how to implement an efficient employee training program. Follow these steps to make sure your regimen is productive and efficient rather than a waste of time:

• Determine your training objectives
• Make a plan
• Work with your staff to implement the plan
• Evaluate areas in which your training is effective and determine where to make improvements

Determine Your Training Objectives

First, you’ll need to appraise your staff and decide where to focus your time and attention. Do your employees need to brush up on technical skills? What about soft skills like customer service and conflict resolution? Maybe they need to learn how to use new equipment or software or else adapt to a new process.

Remember that some training might benefit all employees. For example, if you’re updating company policy, switching health insurance providers, or reviewing sexual harassment protocol, each employee may benefit from a chance to participate. However, if you just purchased a new piece of machinery, only the operators might need training. If you’re switching to new accounting software, your HR and finance teams may need the information more than everyone else, and due to their experience, you can cover more advanced material more quickly than you could if you were to call an all-hands meeting.

Consider your company’s short-term and long-term goals as you identify training opportunities and determine your training priorities. Then, you can begin to focus on specific training objectives. Consider how you, your human resources staff, or other stakeholders will evaluate whether your training has met these objectives.

Develop a Training Plan

Once you know what you hope to accomplish, you must turn your attention toward developing a training plan that lays out how you will implement your training program.

First, you should consider who will carry out the training(s). You may have a training expert or an employee with technical certifications on staff already. If not, you could turn to a training service or professional organization for in-house or online support. If you’ve just purchased new equipment or software, your vendor may offer a trainer or be able to point you toward a qualified expert.

Your company will also have to weigh employee training against other job duties as you decide when to offer training. Can they cover all the material in one sitting? Might it be less disruptive to spread training out over days, weeks or months? Can you afford the cost of recurring sessions since they take your employees off the job temporarily? 

Remember other logistical matters, such as where you will hold the training. If you operate a production facility and have to shut down the factory floor to train on a new machine, should you offer training outside normal business hours? If so, your company will have to decide how to cover your staff’s overtime wages.

Work with Your Employees

Once you’ve planned your program, it’s time to get to the exciting part — the actual training.

Keep track of each employee’s participation. You may find it easy to create a spreadsheet with the names of every member of your team so your trainer can take attendance and track progress.

Remember to keep your training objectives in mind. Depending on the length of your program and the material covered, you or your trainer may find it useful to redirect your staff during the program. If employees are working quickly, you might be able to cover more advanced material or finish sooner. Other topics may require a more thorough review. And if your program isn’t working toward addressing your company’s goals, think about how to pivot so your team stays focused on the most important material they’ll need to cover to increase their productivity and value.

Evaluate Your Effectiveness and Make Improvements

At the conclusion of a training program, evaluate the experience holistically. Solicit feedback from trainers, trainees, and other leaders at your company to ensure that you’ve met your training objectives and that those objectives are serving your business’s needs.

If training didn’t address your company objectives, you may want to try again with a new program that addresses the deficiencies. If employees didn’t acquire the information they needed, you could try another trainer, a different schedule, or additional resources. If employees digested the material but it hasn’t improved their value to your business, you might reconsider how your training objectives align with your company goals.

If training was successful, you might consider offering the material again as needed, or you can apply the best strategies toward additional training in an advanced topic or new material with a different team.

Employee Training is an Attractive Benefit Your Company Can Provide

An effective training program keeps your staff nimble, productive, and comfortable with workplace upgrades. But it also demonstrates that your company values its professional development.

Training is an important part of your company’s benefits package. 

A more tangible benefit is the group health insurance you provide. Group Enroll is an insurance broker that specializes in acquiring group benefits for Canadian companies. We can help you find health, dental, life, and other group insurance plans at the most competitive rates. Contact Group Enroll today to receive quotes from some of Canada’s top insurance companies. Remember, a comprehensive group benefits plan makes your company more attractive to qualified job candidates and provides security for your team.