There’s no denying that employees are the most valuable assets of any business. Without your employees, you can’t run your business and subsequently won’t have a way of offering your products and services to your customers.
When you hire an employee, one aspect of their employment you must fulfill is employee development. Each staff member will sometimes need training to carry out their work in the best way possible, and they might want to learn new skills that could also help your firm.
The trouble is, some business leaders, or their HR departments, don’t make employee development a priority in their long-term plans. As a result, their staff can feel disenfranchised, and even worthless, and will undoubtedly look for employment elsewhere.
You’re likely reading this today because you don’t want such problems in your workplace. With that in mind, you need to avoid making the following employee training mistakes in your business:
1. You Don’t Know What Training to Offer
Firstly, it makes sense to create a tailored training plan for each employee. Why? The answer is simple: each staff member performs different roles in your organization and will have specific training requirements.
For example, you wouldn’t provide management training to all employees when only a small subset of your staff are managers. Make sure you identify the individual training needs for each employee and tailor their training plans accordingly.
You may find that some employees might have more in-depth training requirements than others; this is normal.
2. You Don’t Have an Accessible Training Platform
Next, you need to make sure that you’ve got a universally accessible training platform that all your team members can use. For instance, if you have a large business, it could be a good idea to invest in an LMS corporate training solution for your company.
With such solutions, each employee can log in to an account that provides personalized course material for their training. Plus, you can use training platforms to monitor performance and identify any areas of concern.
3. Your Objectives Aren’t Clear
You know that your employees need training in specific areas. However, you don’t fully understand why they need that training and what will be the resulting outcomes. Chances are, your staff won’t understand such unclear objectives either.
You need to make sure that both you and your staff understand why they need training and what will happen once they’ve completed their courses. For example, a machinist that completes a training course will know how to operate new equipment that you’re installing.
4. You’re Just Recycling Old Learning Material
One of the biggest mistakes that even the most forward-thinking of businesses make is recycling old learning material for several years or even decades. As you can imagine, learning material must get updated to reflect new tools, practices, or even industry changes.
If you have a set of courses that you provide to your employees, ensure that you review the learning material periodically. Doing so will help you check if anything needs updating, such as explainer videos or written instructions.
5. You Don’t Provide Anything Relevant
When you run an IT consultancy, providing courses on using specific applications or even getting industry-recognized qualifications in them makes sense. What you wouldn’t do is provide courses on flower arranging or using construction machinery.
Yet, many companies surprisingly provide a raft of learning options for employees where the material bears little to no relevance to their work. Make sure your business doesn’t fall into that same trap as it’s a waste of everyone’s time and your company’s money.
6. Outsourcing Learning to the Wrong Providers
Let’s face it: there’s no point “reinventing the wheel” by curating learning material in-house for your staff. It makes more sense to outsource your training and employee development needs to external training providers.
The thing is, you need to check that the providers you use (or want to use) are offering the right learning material and support. Sadly, some training providers are only interested in profit and have little to no interest in supporting their clients or understanding their needs.
7. Not Checking Learning Material Is Easy to Follow
If any of your employees find it challenging to follow the flow of training courses you provide to them, you have a problem. That’s because the learning material might be easy for trainers to follow but not so easy for the learners.
It goes without saying that you need to review all learning material and check that your staff members understand the concepts. They should also know what to do in each segment of their courses to achieve the desired results.
8. Not Providing Ongoing Training
Another big mistake that businesses of all sizes make is only offering training at the beginning of an employee’s appointment at the company. Yes, some new starters will need help and support to understand how to complete their work to certain standards.
However, employees should always have access to ongoing training, so they can update their skills and knowledge – especially if they wish to apply for different or more senior roles within the business.
9. Not Adapting to Each Person’s Learning Style
The trouble with having a “one size fits all” approach to learning is that some of your employees will not properly engage with their learning material. As a result, they could end up missing out on crucial facts and information that will help them complete their courses.
That’s why it’s a better idea to adapt to each individual’s learning style. For example, some people find it easier to learn by reading the information, whereas others might prefer a more hands-on approach.
10. Forgetting Each Person’s Work Schedules
Lastly, when you offer workplace training and development, you need to ensure that their learning takes place around their work commitments. For instance, enrolling staff on courses when a major project deadline looms doesn’t make sense.
Thankfully, many learning options include self-paced training, meaning that employees can learn when they’re less busy at work, or they could complete their training in their spare time at home via the Internet.
