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Studies have found that just 12% of employees apply new skills obtained from training to their jobs.
Clearly, there is a gap that needs to be addressed.
Organizations need to understand that even the training that isn’t compulsory (read: compliance training) has significant potential to contribute to their business goals.
At the same time, if the training that is compulsory is being delivered only because it is a compulsion, it will hardly be effective.
The truth is, a well-planned and carefully executed training strategy has the potential to not only contribute to the career growth of your employees but can also deliver positive inputs to your business’ bottom line.
Here’s how you can create a comprehensive learning strategy that brings you closer to quantifiable business goals:
Step 1: Define Business Objectives
In order to align training with business objectives, it is first important to have a clear picture of what you want to achieve. Sure, “more profits” is a desirable goal, but it isn’t a definitive one. Listing SMART goals is a good strategy to come up with definitive goals. SMART goals are:
Specific and well-defined
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-bound
An example of a SMART goal would be:
Reducing production time by 10% in six months.
Think about what you would like to improve for your business, and move on to the next step.
An example of a SMART goal would be:
Reducing production time by 10% in six months.
Think about what you would like to improve for your business, and move on to the next step.
Step 2: Identify What Needs Improvement
Once you have identified your goals, it is time to understand how you can achieve them. Clearly, there is some area of improvement because of which, you haven’t already achieved the goals listed in the previous step.
Think about these shortcomings, about the skills you need in your team to achieve your goals, about the kind of training that will help you build such a team.
In other words, identify the skill gap that is preventing your organization from achieving your SMART goals. This step, also known as training needs analysis, is perhaps the most crucial step of this process.
Step 3: Develop Relevant Training Objectives
By now, you know what you want to achieve and what skills you need to add to your team to achieve it.
It is now time to come up with definitive training objectives. To continue with our initial example of reducing production time, the skill gap (step 2) would probably be inefficient handling of machinery.
To overcome the same, your employees may need a refresher course on the functioning of the machinery.
Another skill gap, in this case, maybe poor management of time, which can be taken care of with soft skills training.
Step 4: Communicate Training Objectives
Now that you have determined training objectives and the logic behind them, share this information with your employees.
This way, they will not feel a disconnect between their training and how it helps them be more efficient at their jobs.
When employees understand how training helps them move further in their own careers, along with helping the organization move closer to its goals, they will be better motivated to learn new skills.
Deliver Training
Finally, it is time to design training and deploy it for your employees using an enterprise training solution.
Why do you need an enterprise training solution?
The reason is simple, only having the right training objectives and communicating them with the learners isn’t enough. Your training needs to be engaging and accessible. More importantly, your training initiatives need to be trackable, and all of this is made possible with an enterprise training solution.
