The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), a professional association of 70,000 corporate learning specialists worldwide, provides new ammunition for anyone who needs to advocate for employee training programs in their studio “Leveraging Learning: companies ‘Do investments in education and training pay off?’ They suggest that companies should consider employee training as an investment and report it in their financial statements along with R&D and capital expenditures. While few companies are likely to report training as an investment, it is certainly an operating cost that provides a good return on investment.
Considering that the latest figures show that dealing with underperforming employees costs companies in the United States $ 105 billion each year, that managers spend 14% of their time redoing or correcting the mistakes of others and According to a recent consumer study, fifty – seven percent of consumers surveyed identified poor employee training as a primary aspect of service deficiencies, employee training may be one of the most significant expenses you can running a business in terms of getting a significant return on your investments.
Proper training can improve employee performance and output, reduce management problem-solving time, and improve customer satisfaction. But how does a company choose the “right training”? Technology training, teamwork training, motivational training, writing classes, sales training, job task and procedure training, the list of types of training is almost endless. Combine this with the variety of old and new training methods such as online, classroom training, quick e-learning, DVD and CD-Rom training, etc. and you begin to see the difficulty of choosing the “right training” for employees.
First, set goals and set objectives for the training results. Be sure to target your training to teach the necessary skills. Get feedback from your staff on what they think they need to know to do their job well.
Develop a training plan and policy based on the issues / needs to be addressed. Determine exactly what skills need to be taught and which staff need training in which areas.
Determine the format and resources to implement the training. The format can be group or individual, internal or external, and resource options include CDs, intranet and Internet resources, traditional classroom, books, DVD, etc. In other words, present the material in a way that matches the learning style of your staff.
Evaluate every training session you implement, regardless of the format or resources used. Ask staff for written evaluations of their training and establish a method for determining the results, such as analyzing whether staff error has decreased after training in that task / skill.
An example of a training need that most companies face every year is technology training. With the rapid advancements in computer technology, companies must frequently update hardware and software, but without training, you and your staff will waste a lot of time and money trying to perform old tasks with unfamiliar technology. Many experts have suggested that 70 percent of your technology budget should go to training and only 30 percent to hardware and software. However, those figures are based on last year, and like everything to do with computers, last year is out of date.
Let’s look at the use of e-learning for computer training, which has helped many companies increase the scope of training at a reduced cost compared to traditional training. However, it was not yet economical. Development and delivery required advanced skill sets and a long turnaround time. Today, there are many methods available for rapid e-learning that can be used to quickly and inexpensively create learning tools to quickly provide employees with software task training. For example, we recently needed to train some staff members in a new data entry task to perform on a database that they were not familiar with. Our SME created a training module recorded with audio, video, and review questions while working on the database in about two hours, actually wasting less than half an hour of productive time. Employees who were trained required a minimum training time, around thirty minutes, to be at least adequate on the task, started working on the task, and were proficient at the end of the workday. Since the training module was a recorded session, it still existed if the employee needed a refresher or to train temporary or replacement employees. That’s cost-effective and time-efficient training, leaving more of your budget for hardware and software.
Today, more and more companies are embracing new learning resources and developing training that is job specific rather than concept or program oriented. In other words, companies are not looking so much for Microsoft Word training as for employee training on how they will use Word in their specific job. With new resources like rapid e-learning, companies can reduce the time and money spent developing training.