Investing in talent is one of the crucial ways to ensure sustainable business growth. Firms that organize training programs for their employees enjoy a higher profit margin by 24 percent on average than firms that do not invest in training their employees.
Employees become more productive when they see the effort put in to train them.
Learning and development officers should know the different employee training methods and when they are needed to ensure effective training.
Keeping in mind that everyone learns differently, and every training requires a particular method, these methods try to cater to the different learning types of employees.
1. Classroom Training Programs
The classroom training program takes place at a physical venue within the company’s premises or a hired venue. It’s led by a facilitator who trains groups of employees through a series of presentation slides. The facilitator might include other training activities like case studies.
This technique allows the trainees to interact with the facilitator and ask questions on issues they don’t understand. It also fosters a great relationship between the employees and their facilitators.
The classroom-based training helps the organization save costs since it takes on a large group of employees that can learn together instead of a one-on-one method.
However, it does come with cons, such as spending money to hire venues or making travel arrangements for the employees.
It’s also difficult for the facilitator to interact one-on-one with the trainees due to the number of people training. The trainee cannot learn at their pace. They’ll have to move at the same speed as other trainees.
Most employees see this method as dull. Facilitators can make it better by giving breaks in between lectures to allow employees to move around and interact with each other.
2. Interactive Training
The interactive training method ensures the employees are actively participating in the training.
They are not just sitting down and moping at the presentation slides, but they are acting out scenarios and solving issues they might likely face on the job. Types of interacting training methods include:
- Simulations
- Case Studies
- Roleplays
Simulations
This method replicates work situations and allows employees to figure out the best solutions to problems they’ll face while working.
Case studies
Employees can learn how to analyze and solve issues through case studies training programs. Here they are given different scenarios related to workplace issues and asked to analyze them, and come up with the best solutions. They can do this training alone or within a group.
Roleplaying
As the name entails, this technique involves two people, likely the facilitator and employee acting out different work scenarios. This training method is most useful for employees working in the customer or client service department.
Other examples of interactive training methods include quizzes and games. The facilitator might introduce this as a form of entertainment after long hours of learning.
3. On the Job Training
This technique allows employees to experience real work activities so that they can learn while on it. It’s useful for new employees and succession planning. It’s more effective when employee shadowing gets incorporated into it.
Learning on the job has proven to be quite useful. However, it’s time-consuming due to the repetition of tasks by the employee before they finally get it.
4. Coaching/Mentoring
The coaching or mentoring method is when an old but best-performing employee is assigned to a new hire to teach them the ropes. It makes transitioning easy for the new hire, and also helps in building great relationships.
This employee training method should go hand in hand with other forms of training since the old employee can’t teach everything even if there is time.
5. eLearning
This method allows the employees to read training materials online at their pace. The training materials come with visuals and a voiceover to explain the content. Videos can be attached to it too.
eLearning can accommodate many employees, and there is no need to hire a venue since training takes place in a virtual space
The problem with eLearning is that facilitators cannot monitor the trainees to see if they are learning.
The solution is adding quizzes and tests between and at the end of the training program. This will ensure they are learning and retaining what they have learned. It will also reveal their strengths and weaknesses.
6. Videos
This method involves the use of videos to train employees on various topics. And with the growing preference for video content, it will soon become a popular employee training method.
Videos make training more interactive, demonstrative, and engaging. The trainees do not need to use their imagination as every scenario gets displayed on the screen. There is no need for an in-person facilitator, although you can have one to moderate the class.
If you want to adopt this employee training method, you should get a professional to curate the videos. Doing it by yourself can be frustrating and time-consuming.
Conclusion
There are different employee training methods organizations can adopt. But the key is knowing the right training employees need at a particular time as well as the availability of the employees.
Learning and development officers need to take out time to plan out the training and ensure it’s the right fit for both the employees and the organization.
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