1. Assess your needs and develop goals and success metrics.
The first step to any successful training program is to establish your goals as a business or department and figure out what you need to successfully achieve them. It’s also important to establish key performance indicators (KPIs), which defines as “a set of quantifiable measurements used to gauge a company’s overall long-term performance. KPIs specifically help determine a company’s strategic, financial, and operational achievements, especially compared to those of other businesses within the same sector.”
Here are some questions to consider:
- Who is the intended audience of your training program?
- What are your short-term and long-term goals?
- What is the timeframe for those goals?
- How will you measure success?
- What does success look like to the employees?
- How will you know if participants have learned what you intended?
2. Determine the type of employee training plan.
In discussing your goals and objectives, you also want to consider the type of training program you want to implement. Here are some ideas:
- Classroom style vs. workshop style
- In-house seminars vs. industry conferences
- Individual vs. group training
- Skills-based training vs. management training
- On-the-job training vs. external resources training
- Professional, safety or quality training
- Online vs. in person
- Self-paced or structured timeline
- Group training activities
- Hands-on training
- Instructor-led training
3. Keep adult learning principles in mind.
Adults who are participating in an employee training plan often come to the table with more experience than young students in an academic setting. As eLearning Industry explains, you should keep certain characteristics of adult learners in mind, including:
- Experience will play an important part in any type of learning.
- Learning should incorporate real-world applications.
- Adult learners are typically ready and willing to learn especially if the content is interesting to them.
- Adult learners must be involved in the process, whether that’s developing content or creating evaluation criteria.
4. Develop learning objectives/outline.
What topics do you want to cover? What’s the most important information? How do you want to begin and end? Figuring out the answers to those questions will help drive the structure of your employee training plan — and ensure you hit all the important points.
5. Finalize your training plan.
After you have an established outline with your learning objectives, now is the time for details. Tip: Keep your learning objectives handy so that you can ensure your plan adequately addresses each one. Tweak your plan as needed. Get feedback from colleagues. Move sections around. Fill in the blanks, add as much detail as possible and make revisions.
6. Design and develop training materials.
A training plan is only as good as its training materials. “It’s important to have a design fully prepared before launching into development to ensure nothing goes missing or out of order. Remember to focus on the learning needs of the employees rather than what’s easiest for the trainer, and make sure your content focuses specifically on reaching the learning objectives.”
Training materials can include:
- eLearning
- Training manuals
- PowerPoint or slide presentations.
- Job aids
- Workbooks
- Online materials
7. Implement training.
During the actual training, explain the ground rules and convey your expectations before you get started.
8. Evaluate training.
Evaluation and feedback are also an important part of the employee training process. It’s best to solicit this type of feedback from employees as soon as the program is finished so that the information is fresh in everyone’s minds. Consider online surveys or questionnaires for efficiency. Tip: Asking for anonymous feedback may take the pressure off your employees.
9. Measure success.
Analyze the results over the next month or quarter. Were the objectives met? Were there any tangible changes? “Determine whether the training corresponds with a rise in revenue, a decrease in costs, any changes in productivity and other metrics you choose to monitor.”
10. Reevaluate as necessary.
Just like with any type of program, it’s best to reevaluate within a predetermined amount of time. What’s working? What isn’t? Have the objectives changed? Do you need to measure metrics differently?