Planning your Employee Training

An article sourced from The Small Business Knowledge Base (http://www.bizmove.com)

The quality of employees and their development through training and education are major factors in determining long-term profitability of a business. If you hire and keep good employees, it is good policy to invest in the development of their skills, so they can increase their productivity.

Training often is considered for new employees only. This is a mistake because ongoing training for current employees helps them adjust to rapidly changing job requirements.

Purpose of Training and Development

Reasons for emphasizing the growth and development of personnel include

• Creating a pool of readily available and adequate replacements for personnel who may leave or move up in the organization.
• Enhancing the company's ability to adopt and use advances in technology because of a sufficiently knowledgeable staff.
• Building a more efficient, effective and highly motivated team, which enhances the company's competitive position and improves employee morale.
• Ensuring adequate human resources for expansion into new programs.

Research has shown specific benefits that a business receives from training and developing its workers, including:

• Increased productivity.
• Reduced employee turnover.
• Increased efficiency resulting in financial gains.
• Decreased need for supervision.

Employees frequently develop a greater sense of self-worth, dignity and well-being as they become more valuable to the firm and to society. Generally they will receive a greater share of the material gains that result from their increased productivity. These factors give them a sense of satisfaction through the achievement of personal and company goals.

The Training Process

The model below traces the steps necessary in the training process:

• Organizational Objectives
• Needs Assessment
• Is There a Gap?
• Training Objectives
• Select the Trainees
• Select the Training Methods and Mode
• Choose a Means of Evaluating
• Administer Training
• Evaluate the Training

Your business should have a clearly defined strategy and set of objectives that direct and drive all the decisions made especially for training decisions. Firms that plan their training process are more successful than those that do not. Most business owners want to succeed, but do not engage in training designs that promise to improve their chances of success. Why? The five reasons most often identified are:

 

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