Well trained employees are valuable assets to a company as they contribute to a high performing team. Training should not end after orientation day. To ensure employees are fully equipped to perform well, they need continuing professional development. Below, 9 business executives discuss their best employee training and development practices.
Keep reading for insights on developing and maintaining effective training programs.
Keep It Simple
Training new employees means keeping things simple. Too many companies try to pack too much into an initial orientation. The objective of training is to ensure new hires really grasp and understand the concepts. Keeping it simple means putting the time, energy, and effort into a program that focuses on one important thing…before moving on to the next.
Ryan Nouis, Executive Search Firm
Adapt
First, understand who is receiving the training and ask how they learn best. Adapt your teaching to their learning. This will strengthen the relationship but also propel their development. Know how they like to be communicated with and adapt.
Angela Bratt, ON Semiconductor
Create a Training Plan
Sounds obvious, but actually do it. It is so easy to toss people in the deep-end. But have the diligence to actually create and stick to a training plan. And people often confuse it with onboarding. Training is a longterm investment, not just the two weeks of showing someone how to do their job.
Eric Rutin, Rutin Marketing
Start with a User’s Manual to Self
Help each member of your team and company develop a person and professional development plan, starting with a User’s Manual to Self. It’s a true game-changer for L&D.
Yuri Kruman, HR, Talent & Systems
Focus on the End Game
It starts with having a plan. Structure, documents, guides – an end game. Setting someone up for success means that you are ready for them before they even enter the building. Making sure they meet with each person on the team to get a holistic picture of the business is critical. Also, copious amounts of patience and time.
Meet People Where They Are
In training and development, it’s so customized. What works for one person doesn’t for another so we look at our power skills training as a one-on-one approach based on a foundation of best practices.
Sharon Delaney McCloud, Walk West
Keep it Fun
While training and development are necessary, they should be fun too. Always look for ways to make the process interactive, and allow for discovery of application versus dictating the outcomes.
Nicole Spracale, Nicole Spracale Coaching & Consulting
Hire an Expert
Hire an HR professional who is an expert at training and development. As CEO of a 12-person company, I’ve tried to be the person who implements a training and development program. The problem is that training and development become secondary as more urgent and important tasks find their way to a CEO. A company needs someone whose top priority is training and development. For us, that’s an outside HR professional who consults and guides us in that area. Either look to outside help like our company or make a key hire internally to ensure employees develop in the way that they need to.
Brett Farmiloe, SEO Marketing Company
Try Hands-On Experience
Training is something that every company in the world does differently, but what works for us, is having people dive into our support queue early on. While it’s helpful to review all the documentation and training manuals we have, seeing the real questions that come through, and working through the problems is what most of our employees tend to say was the most helpful Everyone learns differently though!