The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), a professional association of 70,000 corporate learning specialists worldwide, provides new ammunition for anyone who needs to make a case for employee training programs in its study “Profiting from Learning: Do Firms’ Are investments in education and training paying off?” They suggest that companies should view employee training as an investment and report it in their financial statements along with capital and research and development expenditures. While few companies are likely to report training as an investment, it is certainly an operating cost that provides a good return on investment.
Considering that the latest figures show that dealing with underperforming employees costs companies in the United States $105 billion each year, that managers spend 14% of their time redoing or correcting the mistakes of others, and, according to a recent consumer study, fifty-five Seven percent of consumers surveyed identified poor employee training as a primary aspect of service shortcomings, employee training may be one of the largest expenses a business can do in terms of earning a serious return on your investments.
Proper training can improve employee performance and output, reduce management’s time to resolve issues, and improve customer satisfaction. But how does a company choose the “right training”? Technology training, teamwork training, motivational training, writing classes, sales training, job task and procedure training, the list of types of training is almost endless. Combine this with a variety of training methods old and new, such as online training, classroom, rapid e-learning, DVD and CD-Rom training, etc. and you begin to see the difficulty of choosing the “right training” for employees.
First, make goals and set objectives for the results of the training. Be sure to target your training to teach the necessary skills. Get input from your staff about what they think they need to know to do their jobs well.
Develop a training plan and policy based on the problems/needs to be addressed. Determine exactly what skills need to be taught and which staff members need training in which areas.
Determine the format and resources to implement the training. The format can be group or individual, internal or external, and resource options include CDs, intranet and Internet resources, traditional classroom, books, DVDs, etc. In other words, present the material in a way that matches your staff’s learning style.
Evaluate every training session you implement, regardless of format or resources used. Ask staff for written evaluations of their training and establish a method to determine the results, such as looking at whether staff error has decreased after training on that task/skill.
An example of a training need that most companies face each year is technology training. With rapid advances in computer technology, businesses must frequently update hardware and software, but without training, you and your staff will waste a lot of time and money trying to perform old tasks with unfamiliar technology. Many experts have suggested that 70 percent of your technology budget should be spent on training and only 30 percent on hardware and software. However, those figures are based on the past year and, like everything to do with computers, the past year is out of date.
Let’s look at the use of e-learning for computer training, which has helped many companies increase the scope of training at a reduced cost compared to traditional training. However, it still wasn’t cheap. Development and delivery required advanced skill sets and a long turnaround time. Today, there are many methods available for rapid e-learning that can be used to quickly and cheaply create learning tools to quickly train employees on software tasks. For example, we recently needed to train some staff members on a new data entry task that would be performed on a database they were unfamiliar with. Our SME created a recorded training module with audio, video, and review questions while working on the database in about two hours, losing less than half an hour of productive time. Employees who received training required minimal training time, about thirty minutes, to be at least adequate on the task, started working on the task, and were competent by the end of the work day. Since the training module was a recorded session, it still existed if the employee needed a refresher or to train temporary or replacement employees. That’s cost-effective and time-efficient training, leaving more of your budget for hardware and software.
Today, more and more companies are adopting new learning resources and developing job-specific training rather than concept- or program-oriented. In other words, companies aren’t looking so much for Microsoft Word training, as they are looking to train employees on how they will use Word in their specific job. With new resources like rapid e-learning, companies can reduce the time and money spent on training development.