With the advancement of technology, workplace strategies and employee training methods have improved. Today, companies need to implement these changes to enhance an employee's ability, values, skills, and knowledge. The effective development methods expose workers to consistent and relevant training programs that help companies achieve business goals.
According to a recent study, around 40% of workers resign from jobs within 12 months because of poor training programs.
Effective training techniques for employees are costly, but they provide consistent and immense returns on investment. Let's talk about different employee training programs and their significance.
- This article will cover;
- Why Choosing an Employee Training Method is Important?
- Instructor-Led-Training
- Technology-Led-Training or eLearning
- Simulation Employee Training
- Mentoring and Coaching
- On-the-job Training
- Conclusion
Why Choosing an Employee Training Method is Important?
Employee training methods are vital for the collective benefit of the employees and the organization.
According to Instructure's survey, 70% of US employees prefer to work with employers that invest in employees training.
Some benefits of including an employee training method in your company's strategy are:
- Employees acquire efficiency and skills during workshops and training
- When employees are well-trained, they require less supervision
- The workers get job satisfaction and job security through training programs. A satisfied worker has greater morale, which will lead to organizational success. This also results in lesser employee turnover and absenteeism.
Let's look at the different employee training and development methods with examples.
Instructor-Led-Training
This form of employee training occurs in a room allocated for training. This can be a conference room, classroom, or office. There can be one or more instructors to teach skills to a group or an individual. Instructor-led training is typically done through discussions, workshops, demonstrations, presentations, and lectures.
Some benefits of instructor-led training include:
- It offers real-time access. Employees can directly discuss or take feedback from instructors.
- The instructor can teach a large group at the same time. This improves the learning experience of employees because they can indulge in different techniques, such as games, quizzes, and role-playing.
- This training is helpful for team problem solving, team building, and employees bonding.
Example:
Learnerbly is an employee training and workplace learning company. The company focuses on instructor-led training via workshops, conferences, and learn-and-lunch sessions. This helps employees express their ideas, showcase skills they have learned, and take feedback from their instructors.
Technology-Led-Training or eLearning
eLearning or Technology-Led-Training refers to any tutoring that takes place on-screen, at any time, and anywhere. The eLearning technology programs for employees include customized learning paths, gamification, mobile learning, engaging videos, virtual reality simulations, and augmented reality.
The advantages of implementing e-learning training methods for employees include:
- It saves the company money in terms of travel expenses and development hours.
- Employees do not have to spend their whole workday traveling and training; thus, e-learning saves time.
- The trainers can customize eLearning solutions to better match a particular employee.
Example:
- Shell has a technology-led learning platform known as the Shell Open University. Here employees can access all learning materials, such as technical guides, webcasts, and eBooks.
- Adidas is a German-based company, having over 51,000 employees worldwide. It focuses on training its employees via an eLearning program called the Group Learning Campus.
- Another well-known company, Toyota, promotes e-learning opportunities. This company has LMS (Learning Management System) for 340,000 employees in 29 countries.
Simulation Employee Training
As the name proposes, Simulation training is one of the training techniques for employees designed to represent real-life circumstances. Here employees use their skills and knowledge to handle different situations that they may have to face in their jobs. This allows employees to experiment, get trained, and flourish. The pros of implementing this type of training in your company are:
- Simulation Training helps in improving an employee's ability to make the right decisions.
- It also helps employers to assess the mental capabilities of their employees. Through Simulation training, employers analyze employees' reactions and actions in case of pressure or emergency.
Example:
Several companies provide hands-on situational-based training experience, such as:
- UPS has 9 training locations worldwide that are a copy of real streets and cities. The task for employees is to do timely deliveries while understanding how to deal with hazards like rude neighbors, rogue pedestrians, and drivers.
- Walmart also offers simulation-based training. It uses virtual reality to replicate the working atmosphere and train its workforce.
Mentoring and Coaching
Mentoring and Coaching focus on helping a worker improve or learn a particular skill. This type of program trains a single employee within a specified period.
Mentoring and coaching are helpful in many ways for employees and employers, such as:
- It aids in building soft skills, such as interpersonal relationships and confidence.
- This training program provides positive and quick results because employees are given individual attention.
- It enhances employee performance for a specific task.
- The coach or mentor can teach skills to an individual without distractions.
- An employee receives constructive feedback and support from an elected mentor or coach.
A report named Mentoring Matters: Developing Talent With Formal Mentoring Programs, published by ADT, shows how companies are benefited from incorporating mentoring programs. The research indicates that mentoring programs result in knowledge transfer, intra-organizational partnership, and higher employee retention and engagement.
Example:
Caterpillar, the biggest equipment manufacturer in the world, also excels in providing excellent employee mentoring. It offers coaching and mentorship to new hires specifically. The guidance is based on community knowledge, work-life balance, soft skill improvement, corporate culture, and career counseling.
On-the-job Training
In on-the-job training, a trainee (junior team member) works with a trainer (experienced worker). This helps the trainee to learn new skills and improve existing ones.
It is the oldest and most common type of training having the following benefits:
- Companies can conveniently organize on-the-job training, as it just needs an experienced senior, resources, and tools to train a junior member.
- As soon as the training completes, the learners can immediately use their skills in the company. This will help them to practice the gained knowledge manually.
- During this program, the junior workers are required to work on the ongoing operations of the company. In this way, they instantly understand the pace of work, corporate culture, and their key stakeholders and new colleagues.
Example:
SAS, a US-based company, is a leader in software solutions for businesses. It promotes on-the-job training sessions for its employees to make sure that junior employees are fully prepared to do well in their full-time job.
Conclusion
Companies that want to be profitable and successful must consider implementing employee development methods. There are multiple training plans available today. Therefore, employers must identify employee interests, learning styles, and what knowledge and skills they require. This helps to create an effective employee training method. If you are also looking to create a training program, then you must check our Waybook, as it's equipped with all the essentials to fulfill organizational training needs.
Related Resources
- Remote Employee Onboarding - Essentials Checklist & Advice
- How to Do Employee Onboarding that New Joiners will Love
