How to offer employees a training programme that will genuinely suit them

Employee training has a number of functions. Firstly, it increases the quality, productivity and flexibility of workers by broadening their horizons and teaching them new skills. It can also be a way to retrain existing workers and promote or reassign them to other roles. Last but not least, it is a popular employee benefit. How do you balance all of these objectives and offer a training programme which will enjoy success with workers while also benefitting the employer?

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These tips were provided by the Talent Management website.

Use team managers to find out what kind of education workers need

Use team managers to ascertain how things really are at your company. Managers are in daily touch with regular workers, have performance review meetings with them, and know what workers want and need. So when developing a training programme, be sure to involve team leaders.

Offer the option of personalising the training programme

The possibility of flexibly customising the training programme is definitely something employees appreciate. Do not try to make the programme identical for everyone; instead, give trainees space to tailor their training programme at least partially to their own needs.

Link training as much as possible to the real, day-to-day work agenda of employees

The training you offer should be as closely linked as possible to what the employees in question actually do. If you try to teach them a theory they will never use and which will forever remain abstract to them, they will simply take nothing away from the training.

If possible, do not force workers into anything

Even if there are some mandatory training sessions, you should not push workers into the optional ones. Those who want to learn will always find a way to do so. Those not wanting to learn would not take anything from the training anyway if they were forced to attend.

Give workers a realistic opportunity to participate in training

A common mistake employers make is to offer a seemingly very reasonable and attractive training programme, but one which in reality employees often cannot access or do not have the time to attend due to work overload. Do not make this mistake and design your training programme so that employees can actually attend it.



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Article source Talent Management - U.S. magazine and website for talent management and HR professionals
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