Are You Getting the Most Out Of Staff Training?
By Business Desk
Friday, August 19, 2016.
Many companies invest billions into training their employees every year. While you probably don’t have quite as much capital to throw around, ongoing training is still a very important factor in the future growth and success of your business. However, like any part of running a company, there’s a right way and a wrong way to execute training. Here are a few valuable pointers to ensure you get the most out of it.
First of all, make sure you’re teaching skills that are appropriate to the results you’re trying to secure. Fail to do this, and you’ll only end up pouring valuable resources down the drain. Let’s say you were running a B2B firm, and you had a team of people who are responsible for sourcing new customers, and another that’s in charge of developing all your existing accounts. Sending all of them to a cold calling seminar would probably be wasted effort.
Similarly, with more technical seminars like these: paulsonplasticsacademy.com you need to dig into it and ensure that it’s actually going to improve processes at your business. The lecturer may be an expert in their field, but if they’re not touching on the technology you use at your business then you’ve poured money down the drain.
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Unfortunately, good employee training isn’t as simple as sending the whole team off on a seminar, and then sitting back and waiting for the results. After every session, you need to be scrutinising the team who’s had the training, and find opportunities to measure how well this or that employee is applying the skill which they’ve learned. If progress seems a little slow, then you may need to organise some coaching and mentoring within the organisation. Having learned this or that skill, the employee then has to turn it into a habit. This usually entails getting employees out of pre-existing bad habits, which is never easy for anyone. However, if you combine your training sessions with ongoing coaching and one-to-ones afterwards, it can do wonders to reinforce the new skills they’ve learned. You can read more on this at eremedia.com.
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Finally, bring in some skill-based metrics. When it comes to business, things that get measured get done. Applying this to your training, you need to be able to measure the results of all the sessions and seminars you’ve sent your employees on. After all, you paid for this training in the first place because you wanted to improve some aspect of your business. Let’s say you’ve organise training which focuses on some phase of your usual sales process, which isn’t bringing in the figures you would like. After the employee or team comes back from their session, it’s important to measure your conversion rate for this part of the sales process. Many business owners stick to what they know, and focus solely on their revenue after a training session. While higher revenue could be a sign of success, you should really zoom in on the specific process you were looking to improve.
