Top 10 Tips for Effective Employee Training

Effective, consistent and meaningful training is key to getting the best out of your employees and giving them the tools to succeed in their role. Training is certainly an investment, both in time and resources, but the rewards to be gained from proper training have the potential to vastly exceed the costs.

But how do you ensure the training you’re investing in is effective? Keep reading to find out our top tips!

1. Assess your employee’s training needs

First things first, you must figure out what training your employees need. In some cases, such as health and safety training, this is simple – what training do they need to stay safe? If there are key skills they need to fulfil their role, what are they?

Past these basic training needs though is where it gets a bit more complicated. To get started, you could try conducting a skill gap analysis to assess your workers’ current skill levels and identify any gaps in knowledge or areas for improve.

You can also discuss this with your employees to find out if there are any training avenues they are interested in pursuing.

2. Use a variety of teaching/learning methods

Everyone learns differently – when planning your training, take into consideration the needs of individuals in your team and what learning style works best for them. Reading, online training, lecturing, group work, or practical hands-on training are all valid options. Choose what works best for your team’s training and personal needs!

3. Set goals

Setting goals for your employees can allow you to set expectations and help them to understand the purpose of the training they are going to complete. In doing so, you also show your staff that you are invested in their development and progress.

Additionally, these goals are a good metric to look back on once training is finished to see if it has met the requirements set out.

4. Make sure time is set aside for training

Make sure your trainees can fully focus on their training by giving them set times where they can focus on learning without worrying about their other duties. In the same vein, you should try to ensure that their work is covered as much as is possible, so that they aren’t returning to work afterwards behind on their tasks. This will reduce stress about missing work and allow your workers to focus on the training.

5. Make sure training is accessible and convenient

Leading on from the above, if training is to be completed individually outside of a set training course, employees should be able to access their training materials easily at a time that is convenient to them.

Online training is an excellent tool to use in situations such as these, particularly those that can be accessed via multiple devices.

For example, our online training courses are available online via desktop or tablet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – perfect for those with busy schedules!

6. Involve your employees

Consulting your employees on training matters can help you to foster a positive training culture in your workplace and learn more about your workers’ expectations and needs. Ways you can involve your employees include:

Asking them what they expect out of training and what they want to achieve
Encourage group discussions regarding training
Involving knowledgeable workers in the delivery of training

7. Avoid mass training

Bulk training is sometimes necessary, such as in situations where a large number of employees require the same type of health and safety training, or when there are company-wide requirements such as GDPR or Phishing training.

However, when it comes to individual training needs, it’s best to make your training plan personalised. Doing so will ensure you don’t waste time, money, or resources on training that people don’t need, and instead make sure that you invest in your employees individual needs to succeed at their role.

8. Track progress

For ongoing training, it is important that you check in with your employees to see how they’re getting on. Consider the following questions:

Are they completing any required coursework?
Are they engaged with the training?
Do they understand the training?
Do they have any questions?

9. Measure results

Make sure your current training programme is effective and worthwhile by measuring results once complete. Have your trainees learnt from the course? Will their new knowledge bring value to the business and help them progress in their role?

10. Ask for feedback

Honest feedback from your employees can help to improve your training process for next time – whether about a specific training course they attended, or the way your overall training roadmap is handled, the most valuable information you can get is from those participating.

Proper workplace communication and behaviour is essential to the smooth running of any business, and are applicable to all employees at all levels of a company. Make sure you don’t miss out on our 10% off deal on our Business Communication and Code of Conduct training courses, available until the end of January. Simply enter the code ‘training10’ at checkout to save!