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Research has shown that one of the most important things people look for in a job is training and development. That’s right; not money, not flexible working hours but training and development.
In fact, according to the 2022 LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report, the striking majority of employees said they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development.
LinkedIn’s report findings show that the top 5 drivers of great work culture are -in order of appearance- opportunities to learn and grow, belonging, organizational values, support for well-being, and collaboration. “Growth opportunities” ranked as driver #7 back in 2019!
It may come as a surprise but employee growth is especially true for the young generation and millennials. As Gallup’s latest report shows, 87 percent of millennials rate professional or career growth and development opportunities as important to them as opposed to 69 percent of non-millennials who say the same.
This means that millennials are more likely to decline a job offer if it doesn’t come with learning opportunities to upskill and reskill their competencies as professionals.
Perhaps this has much to do with the fact that they prefer to invest in their long-term success rather than making ends meet or staying in a stagnant dead-end job.
But what do we really know about employee training and development? And most importantly, what do companies need to know about it?
This article aims to shed some light on it, explaining what it is and what it covers.
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What is Employee Training & Development?
Employee training and development refers to the process and the activities that companies carry out to help employees attain new skills and knowledge they need to improve their skill sets and increase their job performance, invest in their professional development, become productive team members within the company, and realize their potential.
In this concept, ‘training’ alone refers to the activities that take place to enforce employees’ performance at work and become better in their jobs. The term ‘development’ comes to add a different dimension to it, enabling employees to attain knowledge that stays with them for a longer period of time and allows them to advance in their current roles or future roles within a business.
Why is Employee Training Important?
While it’s easy to disregard training altogether, it still remains one of the most essential initiatives businesses take and has a major business impact on a company in terms of talent management and employee turnover.
The benefits of employee training and development are many, and amongst them are the following:
Training does not only boost productivity, engagement, and job performance but also promotes inclusion, improves morale, and employee motivation. As a result, it helps to cultivate job satisfaction and retention.
When training is practiced and applied in the right way, it gives the company a sense of direction. At the same time, it revalues old and establishes new business goals, giving employees a defining purpose.
On top of that, effective training that is provided through a well-thought-out training and development program and works towards a training goal can help minimize employee turnover and hiring costs, while maximizing profits by putting in good use top talent. This way, it helps the company become stronger, healthier, providing it with more opportunities for growth and expansion.
What is the Employee Training Cost?
Training employees is a rather big investment for any company, however, considering the benefits it comes with, it is worth the money and the time you need to invest in it.
Every company is different and taking into account its size and number of employees working for them, training expenditures tend to vary.
According to the 2021 Training Industry Report, the average training expenditures for large companies decreased from $22 million in 2020 to $17.5 million in 2021. For medium-sized companies increased from $808,355 in 2020 to $1.3 million in 2021, and for small companies dropped from $506,819 in 2020 to $341,505 in 2021.
Research also showed that this accounts for $722 per employee in large organizations, $902 per employee in medium-sized companies, and $1,433 for small companies.
At the same time, the average training expenditure per employee for all companies was $1,071.
To effectively measure training expenditure you need to think about what methodologies, learning styles, and what types of training programs you choose to employ.
6 Employee Training Programs
There are many types of training programs available that serve different aims and objectives. Which one(s) you choose to use for your company will depend heavily on your business needs and priorities.
Here are a few examples of training programs you can embed in your own training strategy:
1. Orientation Training
Orientation training refers to the training session that new employees are required to complete to get essential information about the employer. It is delivered to help new hires adjust to the new working environment upon their first introductory week on the job.
This type of training is administered by human resources and may cover becoming familiar with the company mission, core values, and goals, getting to know the organizational culture, meeting other employees, or completing mandatory new-hire paperwork.
2. Onboarding Training
Onboarding is a series of training sessions that enable new employees to become successful in their roles within the shortest amount of time. Onboarding training is designed by the human resource department and aims to educate employees on the objectives of the department and the company as a whole.
Through this type of training, employees learn how to get easy access to information that improves the knowledge and skills they need to carry out their jobs effectively and achieve productivity.
3. Technical Skills Development
Technical skills development is the training that aims to help employees improve their skill sets, technical or else ‘hard’ skills, that are directly related to a job task and require specific knowledge to carry it out. Examples include coding, programming, and ghostwriting, among other skills.
Technical skills training is essential because it ensures that employees invest in their professional development, cover any skill gaps they may have, improve their competencies, and are up to date with the latest trends in their industry.
4. Soft Skills Development
Soft skills development training describes the type of training that helps employees develop their interpersonal skills (aka people skills). These are personal attributes that include communication, leadership skills, negotiation, teamwork, critical thinking, time management, decision making, and problem solving.
While such skills are harder to define and evaluate, they are equally important to technical skills. Soft skills are essential for employee growth and development and they assist in the creation of a cooperative and inclusive organizational culture.
5. Tuition Reimbursement
With a tuition reimbursement program, a company agrees to offer financial help to employees to further their studies. Such initiatives invest in the professional development of employees and encourage employee retention.
The new skills and knowledge employees learn from continuing studies, completing an online course, getting a more advanced degree, or attending conferences, are used to implement their overall performance on the job.
6. Mandatory Training
Mandatory training is the type of training that is regarded as essential for the safety of employees and the effective practice of a profession. It complies with rules and regulations that employees need to become familiar within their current roles to help minimize risks associated with a professional field.
For most companies, mandatory training takes the form of compliance training, but its contents vary across industries.
The 4 Essential Employee Training Tools
Training employees requires the appropriate employee training software and tools to make it happen. To create an efficient and successful training and development program you need to consider using the following tools and solutions:
A Learning Management System (LMS)
An LMS can help you organize your training material effectively as you can use it to plan, manage and deliver elearning content. It also helps to distribute course content or training resources for different training and development programs.
LearnWorlds offers an elearning platform that covers all of LMS features and so much more. With our platform, you can create courses and unique learning experiences from scratch so that it suits your employees’ training needs.
For more information on what an LMS is click here.
Video Training Tools
Most training resources that are delivered online are visual, containing videos. Videos facilitate thinking and problem-solving while increasing a learner’s engagement.
If you are creating training videos, make sure you look for video production tools that can help you do so. To save you from trouble, we have already created a list of the best training video software available.
Presentation Creation Tools
Apart from videos, written information and text are also important and need to be part of your training material. Creating engaging content is easy as long as you have the right tools, to begin with.
Consider using Google Slides, PowerPoint, SlideShare, Visme, or Prezi to create amazing presentations you can complement your training material with.
Remote Training Tools
Communicating with the team becomes difficult when your employees are not based in the office and you offer them remote training. But then again, there are many remote training tools that can help you out. You can consider using a virtual phone system for seamless training and communication over a phone call.
Alternatively, you can opt for other communication tools like Skype, Slack, Chanty, Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Google Docs to name a few can help you stay connected with your employees throughout the training process.
Employee Training Tips for Smart Companies
Every smart company needs to follow a thorough plan that explains how you will deliver training and when. As part of a larger training and development strategy, you will need to become aware of the following:
Identify the training needs
Think about what you want your employees to learn. To do this, revise your current training practices and try to identify any gaps. Start by pinpointing down what type of training will be beneficial to the team of employees, a specific department, and to the company as a whole.
It might help to ask yourself the following questions:
All of these questions can help you discover what’s missing from your training and development strategy so that you can make the necessary adjustments to your training program.
Consider bringing management on board and consulting with them. Also, consider using ADDIE – an instructional design method for analyzing gaps to organize your course content and figure out what you should concentrate your efforts on.
Decide on training methods
Once you decide what training you need to offer to your employees, it’s time to decide how you are going to deliver it. While most companies start with on-site or face-to-face training, soon they realize that it costs much and doesn’t offer the same benefits as online training which is easily scalable, measurable, and accessible to all workers – remote and non-remote workers.
For better efficiency, consider using a blended learning approach that includes both offline and online teaching and assessment methods. This gives you more options to choose from and offers the kind of flexibility your employees expect.
For example, you can try conducting online webinars and delivering classroom-based training while having employees complete online examinations using a learning management system (LMS). But no matter what method you use, make sure you develop an internal communication plan to ensure both management and employees are kept in the loop.
Develop a learning culture
It’s up to you to decide how thorough your training and development strategy is going to be. Once you agree to offer training to your employees it is important to invest in a company culture that promotes learning and it’s willing to provide them with the best career development resources available.
To add to this, you can have a mentorship program running to help employees discuss their skills development, their concerns, and their individual goals and expectations within the company.
Follow a Training Schedule
Once you finalize what training you will offer to your employees, set a schedule for it. Keeping the workload and deadline schedule in mind is also important since it affects the availability of remote work.
If the entire training module is based on remote learning, consider making it easier for your team. Because in remote working, employees are more likely to have many unscheduled activities.
So, launching the training program without a schedule has the potential of putting extra stress on your employee, which can lead to disturbance in their sleep cycle and reduce productivity.
Measure results
Monitor employee training progress through direct employee feedback, surveys, and assessment reporting. There are many employee survey software tools to create surveys, and polls and share them with employees for instant feedback. Every step of the way, figure out what is working or not and measure your results against the training goals you have set for the company. Doing so should help you see if the training has any impact on employee performance and company growth.
4 Employee Training Examples to Know
Every company has the option to choose which training program they would like to implement. In the same way, they need to decide which training method works best for them and the needs of their employees.
To make it easier, we have listed below some of the most popular training methods.
Instructor-led classroom training
Instructor-led classroom training is the most widely used method in training programs. As the name implies, this setting requires a training manager to deliver a lecture-style presentation with the aid of PowerPoint in front of a group or cohort of employees. The training session happens in real-time at a specific time and can last from an hour to several days.
While most instructor-led training sessions are carried out via the traditional classroom or workshops, many companies choose to conduct webinars to allow remote workers to join them.
Online learning
Online learning is used by the majority of employers who want to follow a modern training plan. Online training is delivered through a computer-based program or an app either in the form of online courses, videos, written material (PDFs), or other types of online training content.
What’s great about online learning is that it is easily accessible and gives the flexibility to employees to learn at their own pace. It’s also scalable which makes it easier for organizations with a big number of employees to administer training.
Online learning is so cost-effective that many organizations exclusively choose to set up an online corporate training program as the only way to train their employees.
On-the-job training
On-the-job training allows employees to have a hands-on approach to learning. It’s a type of training that teaches them how to carry out a certain task or activity. This is the most preferred method of training for employees because it offers active participation, a sense of power and helps to improve information retention.
Video training
Videos are an excellent standalone method of training. Through video training, people are able to learn better and faster since it offers a more interactive form of learning as opposed to a PowerPoint or other written material.
When using videos, you need to consider what instructional style you prefer them to have. For example, there is animation, narration, live demonstration or screencasting, etc. Think about which way your employees learn better and implement that in your strategy.
As you can see, each training method meets a different training goal and accommodates different trends of workplace skills, either targeting the attainment and development of technical skills or soft skills, or a combination of both.
The adoption of any of these training practices should be made in line not only with the needs of the company but also the future workplace trends, industry regulations, and the skill requirements employees need to acquire.
Now Over to You
Training and development programs are important to every organization regardless of the industry they are in.
While taking into consideration all the benefits it offers to the company as a whole, it is easy to understand that investing in training is one critical decision that management is expected to make to achieve growth and success.
So, choose the type of training that works best for you and your employees and invest a reasonable amount of both money and time to make it happen. Good luck!
Get started with LearnWorlds today with the 30-day trial and check out for yourself what it can do to improve the training you offer to your employees.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
In regards to training and development, there are a lot of misconceptions that are worth looking more into. If you have any questions related to the subject, then most likely you are going to get them answered through the FAQs we have prepared for you.
Q1. How long should employee training last?
The duration of training depends on the type of training an employee is undertaking. Some types of training require a few days of training while others take up weeks.
On average though, it lasts from 1 to 2 years to train an employee and ensure that they are a good fit in your company and productive in their role.
Q2. How to track employee training progress?
The best way to track employee training progress is by paying attention to important metrics (customer education metrics) like completion rates, completion progress, and assessment scores. Such information can be obtained from the use of an LMS, an employee training tracking software, or through an Excel spreadsheet that allows you to log information manually.
Q3. How training can improve employee performance?
Through training, employees can equip themselves with important knowledge and skills related to the job at hand. They can learn how to do certain tasks and activities in a more efficient, quick, and effective way thus improving their work performance. Improving employee performance means minimal supervision and increased productivity.
Q4. Who is responsible for training employees?
Training employees is the responsibility of the company that employs them. The management team along with the HR personnel decide what training is needed, when should it be delivered, and how. To find out when training is necessary, they carry out periodic evaluations on the learning needs of the employees linking these to the overall goals of the organization.
Q5. Can an employee refuse to do training?
Employees can refuse to take part in training, but they must accept the consequences of their actions, which may include termination of their employment.
Once they accept employment at a company, the employer expects employees to agree to all the reasonable and legal tasks requested of them. If the training is mandatory or required to make an employee qualified to carry out the job or is part of continuous professional development (CPD), they have no reason to refuse.
Q6. Does employee training reduce turnover?
Yes. Training improves the morale of employees and makes them feel more valued. At the same time, it increases job satisfaction, and motivation and enhances the sense of commitment to the company reducing the rate of turnover within a company.
Q7. How do you identify employee training needs?
Start by analyzing business goals and tasks performed by every department or individual. Measuring performance, gathering feedback from your employees, carrying out focus groups, and setting up a mentoring program are some of the methods you can use to identify any additional training or development needs.
Q8. How to keep track of employee training?
With an LMS or a training tracking software you can get automated tracking and reporting on employee training. This way, you gain access to important information regarding training completion (dates), employee engagement (times logged in), supervisor’s evaluations, assessment results (grades), and employee satisfaction with the training.
Q9. What are the objectives of employee training?
Employee training aims to do the following:
Q10. Why invest in employee training and development?
Investing in a training and development program can equip employees with the appropriate skills, experience, and knowledge they need to carry out their job effectively. Trained and competent employees are then able to perform better and quicker providing more flexibility to the company to adjust to market changes.
Kyriaki is a Content Creator for the LearnWorlds team writing about marketing and e-learning, helping course creators on their journey to create, market, and sell their online courses. Equipped with a degree in Career Guidance, she has a strong background in education management and career success. In her free time, she gets crafty and musical.
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