Essential Training Tips for 2020

When an employee is invited to a training session, that might be his/her first return to the classroom since high school or college days. While for others, continuing education is just a regular part of their career path. In order to create a balanced learning environment, here are a few basic steps that could help trainers overcome trainees’ knowledge/skill gaps and increase learning efficiency and ROI. 

Step 1: Conduct a training needs assessment. That’s your baseline. Ensure training is needed, and it’s the solution for whatever work problem or deficiency it might exist.

Step 2: Create learning objectives. That’s your target. The common desired level of knowledge or skills the employees should have at a certain stage of their career path. The same should be aligned and relevant to the job and/or set goals.

Step 3: Design and develop training materials that will pinpoint the gaps between steps 1 and 2. Please refer to ADDIE, SAM, AGILE methodologies.

Step 4: Introduce blended learning where applicable to ensure the best learning experience. Get your trainees exposed to different and modern ways of learning.

Step 5: Evaluate performance periodically and adjust where it’s needed. You need to find out how much of learning is being absorbed by trainees. Set KPIs if they don’t exist already.

Step 6: Get the upper management involved in the post-training evaluation process of their employees. Find out how much of what has been learned has affected and benefited the workplace. Set KPIs if they don’t exist already.

For many years, I’ve been working in the training and development industry where thousands of employees have been assessed, trained and evaluated for a variety of skills and knowledge areas. While these experiences clearly represent opposite ends of the training spectrum, I believe the above steps are general principles that can be applied to all professional training efforts regardless of the subject matter.