Technical Training - Maximizing Effectiveness, Part 1 of 3

Why bother?

Every employer recognizes the value of providing training and development to their employees. Professional and technical industries demonstrate their commitment through professional development requirements of some variety. Therefore, it is largely understood that training and development, particularly in a technical field of which we serve, is critical. So what is the challenge? The challenge comes with prioritization, delivery methods, content, measuring effectiveness, and justifying both the direct and opportunity costs.

If conducted successfully, effective training can help build a network of colleagues who are good at what they do and enjoy it, too. The question is “Why bother…?”  To answer, consider the following hypotheticals:

• What if you could invoke confidence, clearly define expectations, improve technical aptitude, and update current trends, methods, and vernacular to improve overall effectiveness while job satisfaction soars? 
• What if an effective training program could help an organization closely align employee’s activities and corporate perspectives with the company’s mission? 
• What if the resultant workplace environment was one which could help employers curb outcomes from the current “employee market” and keep star employees from wandering eye syndrome?

How can a company afford NOT “bothering?”

Getting Organized

Similar to a financial portfolio, the key is to build curriculum and training courses that are diversified. Katie Vaillancourt, of VC Training shared with me once that individuals respond and retain to different training methods, well…, differently. For example, Eric may respond well to classroom style training while Ashley gets the most out of learning things on her own in a text book or manual.  Perhaps Michael’s training and development appetite is best fed at his own pace with recorded webinars.

Building a library of content that is consistent across the enterprise and available in a variety of delivery vehicles is not only ideal, it is scalable. Once the content is identified and the templates are built, they can be just as easily applied when entering a new market or launching a new product, as they can when hiring a new salesperson or opening a new branch office. 

This library doesn’t have to look like Hightower from Game of Thrones to be effective. But starting with the Company Mission, core values and cash cow revenue streams will surface the priorities. A key step is to build a table of contents with the “like to haves” such as overview/manual, classroom training module, FAQs, competitive analysis, webinar, external scripted PPT deck, etc. for the category, i.e., each segment, product, market, application as appropriate. Then comes the investment and journey of populating the material into the identified table of contents for each category.

An undeniable challenge is that this is a full-time job. Depending on specific circumstances, this is a full-time job for a dedicated department/staff. Thankfully there are consultants and resources that are available to augment company resources and help get things organized.

At Maccaferri, we conducted a week-long Hydraulic Roadshow in July for our technical, sales and marketing staff for US and Canada. In Part 2 of this 3-Part article, we will share how we planned for the training, how it went, and what we learned.