Training employees for the future is the new imperative, but what is employee training and where do you begin? Find out in our definitive guide.
“Employee training is defined as a planned set of activities for imparting knowledge to employees, such that it leads to a growth in job skills required for organizational growth.â€
Table of Contents
- What Is Employee Training?
- What Are the Benefits of Employee Training and Development?
- 15 Types of Employee Training Programs According to 3 Classification Methods
- 4 Best Practices for Designing Employee Training and Development Programs
- Examples of Training and Development Programs for Employees to Inspire You
- Looking Forward to 2020’s Employee Training Landscape
What Is Employee Training?
Employee training is defined as a planned set of activities for imparting knowledge to employees, such that it leads to a growth in job skills required for organizational growth. These could be technical, vocational, or management skills.
Note that employee training isn’t the same as learning and development (L&D)Opens a new window . While employee training is more production-centric and aimed at problem-solving, L&D is a multilayered approach that facilitates a larger human resource developmentOpens a new window program within the organization. Employee training is a short-term endeavor and focused primarily on improving the production capacity of the organization, be it product or service.
For example, learning how to use a new software will fall under employee training. On the other hand, learning a new programming language (with certifications/degrees) will come under the company’s L&D program.
Better performance is the most obvious benefit of training – but there are several others as well.
What Are the Benefits of Employee Training and Development?
Training has always been central to the employee experience, particularly in labor-intensive industries such as manufacturing or education. In these sectors, employees need highly specific hard skills to perform optimally in the workplace.
The need for employee training becomes more intense when we consider the impact of digital transformation. Even in roles where occasional training was deemed sufficient, there is a clear need for upskilling to sustain relevance.
PwC’s survey Opens a new window of 22,000+ workers found that 53% believe that their jobs will change/become obsolete due to automation. 77% said that they would have to learn new skills or retrain entirely. Worryingly, 34% of those without education/training beyond secondary school aren’t learning digital skills fast enough.
To address this requirement, companies are investing heavily in employee training and development.
Benefits to the employee
- Targeted upskilling, reducing the effort needed to do the same job
- Acquiring skills that can be useful even after one leaves the company
- Increased compensation as a result of promotions via regular training
- Nurturing of leadership potential, opening up new career possibilities
- Bridging educational gaps, particularly or those without a college degree
Benefits to the employer
- Increased productivity per employee, boosting revenue margins
- Transferable knowledge leads to a snowballing effect where peers can teach peers, making the process more cost-effective and collaborative
- Fewer accidents in the workplace, lowering penalties and fines
- Easier implementation of new tools as employees are trained on digital literacy
These are some of the key benefits of employee training and development. Overall, it creates a safer, more productive workplace where employees are confident about their capabilities. Companies can spend less on new hires and operational supervisors, and managers do not have to continuously micromanage their teams.
The result? Increased profitability and happier employees.
Learn More: How to Train New Employees: 5 Steps for PlanningOpens a new window
15 Types of Employee Training Programs According to 3 Classification Methods
Given these clear benefits, companies are eager to invest in the right types of employee training programs. If you’re wondering how to train employees effectively, there are three models of classifications to consider:
Types of employee training programs based on the employee journey
You can figure out how to train an employee depending on where they stand on their employee journey in your company. Across their tenure, the journey can be segmented into three steps, each requiring a specific type of training:
1. Pre-onboarding training: Also known as orientation, this type of training tells a new employee all about the company’s culture, values, and mission, even before they step into the office. Orientation also covers necessary topics such as organizational policies, admin procedures, and compliance norms. This is a mandatory training type for any company.
2. Training at the time of onboarding: The onboarding experienceOpens a new window is meant to familiarize the recruit with the basics of their job. That’s why this is a critical part of training new employees. Explaining the various aspects of the job, basic skills that the employee will need from day one, and digital skills for using the necessary productivity apps, comes under onboarding.
3. Workplace training: Depending on the level of experience an employee brings, you may or may not need to provide rigorous training on hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills will empower them to work better, while soft skills make employees a valuable addition to the company culture. Some level of workplace training is usually necessary when training new employees.
4. Coaching for succession plans: As an employee moves up the organizational ladder, they will need targeted training on soft skills, leadership, and strategizing. This can be driven by executive coaching (which could benefit middle managers as well). Not every employee requires coaching – this will be determined by your succession planning blueprint.
5. Reskilling: At regular intervals, your workforce will require a refresh of their skillsets. These training sessions discuss ongoing trends, new ideas, and emerging tools in your domain. Reskilling has now become mandatory in 2020, as employees seek to future-proof their capabilities.
Types of employee training programs based on targeted learning
The above five types of employee training and development are centered on how far an employee has progressed in their tenure. The next classification considers the objectives of employee training:
1. Hard skills training: As we mentioned, this is a core component of workplace training, equipping employees with the requisite hard skills needed to perform tasks efficiently. This can range from digital capabilities such as data science or coding to other domains, like business analysis, writing, social media management, design, etc.
2. Soft skills training: Soft skills are now critical to employee performance, allowing them to collaborate, solve business problems, and interact with customers. Particularly in non-labor-intensive industries, dedicated soft skills training plays a major role. This is also part of leadership development.
3. Diversity training: Companies are increasingly looking at behavioral/attitudinal change via employee training. One of the primary objectives is to eliminate bias and make workplaces more inclusive. Leaders and HR personnel, specifically, might undergo diversity training so that they can make unbiased decisions.
4. Anti-harassment training: This type of employee training could be legally mandatory, depending on your company size and operational geography. It trains employees on appropriate workplace behavior, company policy, and how to use the available tools and resources for reporting harassment in the workplace.
5. Safety and compliance: Employees must be trained in safety and compliance protocols at regular intervals. OnboardingOpens a new window and right after a regulatory change are the two key moments when safety and compliance training sessions should be held.
Types of employee training programs based on the mode of dissemination
You could also categorize the different types of employee training and development by using the learning channel as a defining criterion. While classroom sessions were the industry standard, HR has now dramatically expanded its reach, with a variety of dissemination modes:
1. Self-driven e-learning: In this model, employees are provided the requisite learning materials in a digital format, either on a learning management system (LMS)Opens a new window or via MOOCs. A specific timeline is set, within which the employee can determine a convenient training schedule. E-learning could also come with certifications that add to the worker’s overall employability.
2. Role-play/Simulations: In the pre-digital era, role-play was a popular mode for disseminating soft skills and diversity training. Today, the advent of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have made simulated environments more accessible. Essentially, this tactic places employees in real-world scenarios to help them observe and learn.
3. Mentoring/One-on-one coaching: Here, the employee is assigned a dedicated trainer that guides them across the learning journey. Mentoring happens via the internal community (Google is a good example, as we discuss later), leveraging skilled professionals already present in your company. Coaching, on the other hand, could bring in third-party experts.
4. Lecture sessions: This form of employee training continues to be relevant, as it allows one instructor to train a large group at the same time. In addition to in-person lectures, you could also have live webinars with interactive capabilities, so that employees can have a meaningful Q&A on the training topic.
5. Hands-on/Apprenticeship: This is useful for training new employees at the onboarding stage, as the recruits can shadow managers/workers and pick up necessary skillsets. Keeping in mind the 70:20:10 model, 70% of learning happens via experiences – and this training model leverages this cognitive tendency.
Learn More: Top 8 Best Practices for Employee Cross-TrainingOpens a new window
4 Best Practices for Designing Employee Training and Development Programs
There’s a varied matrix of training types as discussed above, and the ideal mix of strategies and tools will depend on the nature of your organization. But apart from these variances, there is a set of best practices that can guide your employee training program in the right direction.
1. Avoid fast-tracking the training programs to meet deadlines
Employees might be under training to equip them with skills aimed to fulfill a specific project or business opportunity. In such scenarios, there will inevitably be a deadline. However, learners should not be rushed to complete the training process, as a skill half learned can be more dangerous than none at all.
For example, fast-tracking a software training program when employees do not come out with complete knowledge can easily cause employees to make costly errors in the system.
If some employees are falling behind, there should be separate sessions for these employees to ensure they do not hit the floor without the complete and necessary knowledge.
2. Factor in the forgetting curve and take preemptive measures
Does your workplace learning program account for the forgetting curve? If not, you could be losing out valuable ROI on your employee training investments.
The forgetting curve implies that the knowledge obtained via training can become diluted over time if it’s not put to real-world use. And the curve could be steeper than you think: just after 20 minutes, knowledge retention drops to 58%Opens a new window . After an interval for a day, the employee retains only 34% after a month, this comes down to 20%.
To combat this, HR can utilize the power of hands-on learning and simulations, both of which ask employees to test their skills in real-world situations.
3. Provide a personalized and flexible learning experience
When it comes to teaching, one size may not fit all, especially true when it comes to employees.
Let’s say your training program has five modules. Here, some employees will face difficulty in specific modules. The advisable approach is to divide your training into tiers: in Tier 1, you can provide the generic, common information to all employees enrolled, while adding a Tier 2 training for each module for employees facing difficulties in those specific modules.
This creates a more personalized and flexible learning experience, where employees are not afraid of falling behind. You could also aim to bring in specialized instructors or coaches to deliver highly personalized training sessions.
4. Dynamically update the employee training program to match feedback
It’s advisable to collect feedback from employees at strategic moments of the learning experience.
After day 1, for example, you could ask employees to review the instructor. After week 1, you can ask for feedback on specific course modules and check for knowledge retention. And after completing the employee training program, you could share a detailed questionnaire on the different elements of training.
Without feedback, employee training can fall short of the intended mark and not find adequate use in daily work schedules. A robust feedback loop will help to understand learner sentiment/reactions better, fine-tuning the program for future cycles.
Therefore, when training a new employee, the inefficiencies of past sessions won’t be repeated and the program becomes incrementally more meaningful over time.
Learn More: Top 10 Employee Training Tracking Software in 2020Opens a new window
Examples of Training and Development Programs for Employees to Inspire You
Leading companies across the world spend years developing employee training and development frameworks perfectly suited to their needs. Here are four impressive examples of training and development programs for employees at Facebook, Google, GE, and IBM.
1. Facebook’s Engineering Bootcamp Introduced in 2008Opens a new window , Facebook Bootcamp is part of the onboarding process for Facebook’s engineering team. Mentors or “drill sergeants†meet with new recruits, assign real tasks, and review the results. Engineers are also trained on key culture tenets and receive certifications on completion.
2. Google’s G2G Network Googler-to-GooglerOpens a new window is the company’s peer learning network, where employees mentor each other and help to train in a variety of areas, from negotiation skills to Python coding. This is a purely voluntary program, where employees are encouraged to participate in Google’s culture of learning and make their contribution.
3. GE’s Brilliant LearningBrilliant LearningOpens a new window is meant for GE’s 150,000 supply chain executives, upskilling them to become part of the global digital workforce. Through online courses, workshops, seminars, and a boot camp-style academy (available in multiple languages), the company wants to prepare its employees for the future of manufacturing.
4. IBM’s Your LearningIBM leverages AI to make personalization the focal point of its employee training and development program. Your Learning Opens a new window uses employee demographic data to personalize the learning content, making sure that employees acquire the right skills at the right time. There is also a system of credentialingOpens a new window so that the training certifications are transferable.
Looking Forward to 2020’s Employee Training Landscape
Companies are eager to boost employee performance and training is pivotal to this journey. It’s no surprise, therefore, that investments in online learning tools, e-learning authoring systems, and augmented and virtual reality have increased between 2018 and 2019 (according to the 2019 Training Industry ReportOpens a new window ).
Also, the most in-demand skills have also shifted, with blockchain named as Opens a new window the number one hard skill for 2020 – for comparison, blockchain wasn’t even among the top ten last year!
To keep up companies must scale their training programs, and creatively consider how to train employees. By leveraging the 15 types of training we discussed, following industry best practices, and taking inspiration from leading companies, companies can effectively upskill employees for the future.
Why do you think employee training is so necessary now? Tell us on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d love to hear more about your strategy!