Business growth can’t happen without investing in people. Training is to companies what a growth mindset is to individuals: a tool for continuous improvement. 

While training has always been an important tool for business growth, over the last five years there has been a massive shift in how training is provided. Having the ability to provide education and training at a distance and “on-demand” is effectively now a requirement. 

People want the flexibility to tap into training lessons not only from wherever they are working, but whenever is convenient. Training Magazine reported that 77 percent of organizations offer on-demand, or “asynchronous,” training for at least a portion of their programming. In addition, a push to access training content from mobile devices has led training providers to design programs that can be consumed on a phone anywhere there is a cell signal.

Optimizing Training Offerings

Although there are countless training options available, four types that companies should be investing the most heavily in right now are:

  • New employee onboarding 
  • Compliance 
  • Skill-building
  • Leadership and management development 

Asynchronous learning is considered best for new employee onboarding and compliance training, where the information being shared has more to do with established procedures.
Since this training typically consists of one-way communication, there is less need for interaction, hence less need for scheduling training in groups or with live instructors.

On the other hand, skill-building and leadership training is more effective when provided as a blend of both asynchronous and synchronous learning modules, with some opportunities for interaction built in. Some lessons can be taught in asynchronous mode, but then employees should be brought together for supplementary group meetings or live interaction with a senior staffer or subject matter expert. These synchronous training sessions facilitate knowledge and culture transfer. 

Asynchronous training can also be useful for skill-building that is optional or for resource material that serves as a reference library. Many companies are compiling menus of asynchronous lessons and courses and allowing employees to pick and choose which modules are relevant or interesting to them.

Another current trend is microlearning. Just as it sounds, microlearning consists of very short modules or bursts of instruction. Online platforms like TikTok and Instagram have conditioned us to appreciate videos lasting only a couple of minutes, which has now seeped into training. Rather than providing an hour-long tutorial, microlearning sessions might last 3-5 minutes. 

You may use multiple microlearning modules to address a larger topic, but employees like the immediate gratification of completing a lesson that takes less than 5 minutes. The good news is that microlearning is also more effective, with research in the e-learning industry reporting that microlearning can increase retention rates by up to 80 percent.

Factoring in Learning Styles

Of course, companies must keep in mind that not everyone learns in the same way. There are three types of learners:

  • Visual 
  • Auditory
  • Kinesthetic

Visual learners learn best by watching and reading, auditory learners prefer spoken lessons, while kinesthetic learners learn best by doing. Thus, the best training provides material in all of these formats, so everyone can learn. 

For example, if your training is a recorded audio or video presentation by an instructor, it should be accompanied by a printed transcript and closed captioning. Training should also include practical exercises and assignments for your learn-by-doing participants.

Training Is a Partnership

Training requires subject matter expertise, but effective training also requires course-building skills that most employees do not have, no matter how highly skilled they are in their area of expertise. Thus, it often makes sense to hire “learning management specialists” to design and build custom instruction in partnership with your internal experts. 

Sometimes, training can be entirely outsourced – compliance topics, for instance, are good candidates, especially because oftentimes you need outside experts to provide the content as well as the training-design. It’s also fairly easy to hire an outside learning specialist to create new employee onboarding without demanding a lot of time from your team – just give the outside specialist your employee manual and let them do the rest!

With more specialized training, such as skill building and especially leadership/ management training, your in-house team will need to work closely with the learning specialist to develop training that is not only effective but makes sense for your company and culture. 

Compliance training and new employee onboarding are mandatory, but how much skill-building and leadership training you offer is up to you as a business leader. To determine what your business needs most, start with an assessment. It’s important to know what skills each team member already has, as well as what skills your managers think would be most useful to increase productivity and growth. Think through your goals for training, who might be eligible, and how you intend to measure the results of the training once it’s completed.

Once you’ve delivered training, follow up to evaluate its effectiveness: Did it have a measurable impact on the problem you are trying to solve? An exit survey right after the training session is a good gauge of what was absorbed; another survey a few months down the line will tell you how much was retained, and if folks are applying what they learned.

Hire a Specialist or DIY?

When you hit 50–100 employees, you may want to consider hiring a full-time learning specialist or human resource professional to lead your training initiatives. Until that point, it’s typically up to you as the founder or CEO to spearhead training. 

Fortunately, that can be done initially by documenting how things are done and what the policies and procedures are. You can simply record short videos to share what you know and ask your subject matter experts on staff to record videos to capture what they believe their team needs to know.

Some of the best do-it-yourself (DIY) learning management tools for this purpose are:

  • Canvas
  • Google Classroom
  • SharePoint
  • One Note

You can use these free or low-cost online tools to record and upload videos and PowerPoint presentations to help share your knowledge more broadly within your organization.

Providing regular training and professional development opportunities to your team yields numerous advantages, from increased job satisfaction that leads to improved retention and reduced turnover to standardized performance across all processes to upskilled team members that are a source of competitive advantage, just to name a few. 

When your people are at their best, your company is at its best.

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Training camp was such an important part of my NFL career. Many of my favorite memories and stories come from training camps over the years!

There’s a lot a team has to accomplish each year. There are rookies who have to learn how to become professional football players. There are new players from other teams, who have to learn your culture. Even veterans aren’t exempt – every year there was a new playbook to learn and install!

We don’t have an actual training camp in our business, but we still have to do the work of developing new employees, teaching our culture and values, and growing skills. It’s a necessity for building a strong team that will help your business win! Read this article that explains our philosophy not only for training our team but also for building training programs for our partners!

 

 

Fran Tarkenton