Types of Employee Training

In the business world, the importance of training is directly correlated to the benefits of training. When effective training takes place, a company not only decreases its turnover rate, but employees also perform better in their roles. Below are three of our favorite common practices employers work into their employee training programs:

eLearning – By incorporating eLearning software into training, employees can retain basic information quicker. Employee learning progress can be tracked, and company-wide common knowledge can be established. It has saved expenses in training remote employees and is continually used for ongoing training.

Role-Playing / Case Studies – This practice is an effective way to problem-solve. As a manager, you can understand an employee’s thought process and rationale when approaching and tackling a problem.

Mentorship – Employees need continual guidance — especially new employees. Be the person, or assign a person, that an employee can go to and get answers and reassurance.

These aren’t the only types of training, but ones that are used most often in onboarding and ongoing training. eLearning is used by many companies to train batches of employees. Case studies can even be incorporated into learning. Role-playing helps reinforce information with practice performance, and having a mentor to seek advice from in the first year is a comforting and guiding experience.

Furthermore, learning automation software (advanced eLearning software) has proven a great tool for the employee onboarding process. With this cloud-based system in place, significant time is saved from the administrative and learner end. In regards to Lessonly, content creation is faster, learning delivery is seamless, tracking enables individual progress, and learners can access the system at their convenience on mobile devices. There’s no type of employee training that eLearning software can’t help, but there are a few types it has proven most effective. In cases of batch onboarding new hires, sales teams, and customer service teams, great eLearning software has played a huge part in the efficiency of training. No longer is training limited to on-site sessions and mandatory time in front of a computer. And no longer do administrators have to assume that learners are learning. Regardless of the types of employee training on your docket, having an eLearning system in place has proven significant benefits in the growth of a company.

A great eLearning software enables managers to focus on the intellectual growth of their employees. A great eLearning software saves resources beyond tangible objects like ink and paper. Effective eLearning gets employees onboard and up-to-speed faster. By going with a SaaS learning software, money is saved by not having to develop and maintain the system itself. Time and money are also saved because turnover rates dwindle, employees perform better and enjoy where they work. Additionally, with trackable functions (at least in Lessonly), remote workers can better retain learning information and don’t have to travel as much to do so.

The Importance of Training

The importance of employee training goes beyond the distribution of a quick-guide, employee training and development PDF. To be a great trainer, you must be able to manage the learning system in place while simultaneously recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of your learners. What about the employees? Why is employee training important from the learner’s perspective? Think of it this way, the importance of job training creates the foundation for employees to build success upon.

In many instances, types of corporate training have disregarded the retention by learners of the learning content itself due to being caught up in the logistics of the system or process, i.e., learning managers can be so bogged down by managing the system or software itself, that the success of the learner falls to the wayside. With technology today, there’s no need for this problem. Lessonly is an excellent example of a learning system that’s user-friendly from both ends; managers easily create, deliver, and track learning materials and learners can take lessons and refer back to those materials with ease.

Employees create their first impression of a company and gain their first insights in the training phase. By mixing up types of job training — eLearning with on-site role-playing — it enables the learner to understand and act on what they’ve learned. Even though training is commonly associated with the beginning of employment, it’s vital the reinforce knowledge at a cadence. Whether it’s monthly or annually, ongoing training keeps current and fresh employees informed with the same knowledge-base. As mentioned, initial training sets the foundation for an employee’s success, but ongoing training is a key factor in the development of an employee.

Difference Between Training and Development

The difference between training and development is this: training consists of providing an employee with the necessary materials to perform in their role. The development of an employee is recognizing their strengths and weaknesses, and pushing to excel in the former and improve upon the latter. Employee training and development is beneficial to both the employer and employee; The employee takes pride in their performance and embraces growth and understanding, and the employer keeps a star employee in the company.

The importance of training and development lies in the company’s objectives of training. You can skim through training and development articles all day, but the answers will only be broad suggestions. A common objective of training and development is to prepare employees for leadership roles. What can make or break the process of development is the right choice of employee development methods used. You can’t expect to put an employee in front of a computer for four hour periods of time and in two perform in a leadership role. To grow an employee, it takes tests and trials. Before considering an employee for a leadership role, make sure you take notes on their performance. Notice their strengths and weaknesses. Recognize if they are self-aware and self-driven. Then, cover the basic practices of the leadership role with elearning, and help them exemplify their role in the first month or two of transition.

When you hone the process of development for each role, your objectives become clear and your growing employees have clear direction to succeed in their future position. A clear plan in place makes prevalent the benefits of training and development.

Staff Training in Batches

The training and development process can prove a challenge when a group has to be onboarded for the same role. Types of training methods like on-the-job training, mentorship, and elearning are all excellent methods to training groups, but they should not act exclusively. By using a combination of employee training techniques, it’s easier for a group to retain information and reinforce their learning through simulation.

For example, you could use eLearning for your human resources training courses, but also partner a rookie employee with a veteran employee for mentorship purposes. The new employee can cover the basics with eLearning and hone their skills in performance with a mentor by their side. Using two types of training methods for employees helps reinforce information, therefore ensuring retention in employees. Simply put, an employee does not remember all information from a single exposure.

For example, a new employee, required to not only understand the day-to-day processes and procedures in a company, but also understand the navigation of the company’s Salesforce account on day one will become overwhelmed and not able to accurately absorb the necessary knowledge to perform well. This employee needs not only engaging content to learn with, but the ability to learn it in her best environment and refer back to it later. Lessonly helps the learner do that.

Staff Training and Development With Lessonly

The need for training and development has become more immediate than ever. Software used to train employees ten years ago has been rendered inefficient compared to the software-as-a-service product that is constantly being improved upon today. Standards are heightened and people are expected to know and balance more when entering a job role. The importance of training employees well, initially, and providing access to materials for review is no longer an option. It’s a necessity.

As a SaaS, Lessonly knows the importance of training in the workplace. When it comes to staff training and development, we’re keeping the staff in mind. Because the corporate industry is so demanding, the quicker a company can grow its employees and maintain common company-knowledge, the faster that company reaches its goals. Learning software for onboarding and ongoing employee training is an essential tool in that process. Furthermore, the software used needs to be effortless to maneuver and through and manage so that managers can focus attention on creating and delivering great content to learners, and so that those learners can retain better information faster. That’s Lessonly.

From the administrative side, Lessonly helps you cover any employee training topics under the sun. With Lessonly you’re not limited on information and files to implement. Tools provided on the platform aren’t complex and organization is guided rather than just given for the admin to figure out. Lessonly makes for an excellent use of software to mix into your types of employee training methods. Because the platform is mobile-friendly, learners can take lessons at their convenience before a due date anywhere there’s internet access. This gives managers the opportunity to use on-site time for employee role-playing or actual performing instead of lecturing. Lessonly is also integratable with other software systems like Zendesk and Salesforce.

Lessonly continues to develop and implement automated features in its software to further make the learning system seamless. Administrators can assign a queue of lessons so that, after the completion of one lesson, another is assigned to be taken. Lessons can be assigned at monthly or annual cadence, e.g., recertification training refreshers. When a lesson is assigned to a learner, that learner receives an email as soon as it’s assigned, the day before the lesson is due, and the day the lesson becomes overdue.

Before, people wanted fast delivery with effective retention. Frankly, both were not achievable. Content was time-consuming to create, therefore, recycled. The delivery, though fast, was clunky, with no acute way to track learner progress. And the learner’s usability was complicated, restricted, and bland. Learners would have to sit through training modules for a certain amount of time until the system decided they’ve read and retained the information. That’s just not how learning works. For a person to learn, it takes reading, testing, and repetition. All of these things are possible with excellently formatted content in Lessonly’s automated elearning system.

When creating a lesson, text is easily formatted, sound and video are easily implemented, and files like .pptx, .gif, and .pdf can be uploaded. In a lesson, quiz questions can be implemented to help track the progress of employees. As an admin, you can see the progress an employee is making in a lesson as well as their quizzing results in our employee overview pages. Having the capability to see the progress of each learner enables a manager to better assist attention to those who need further learning and to celebrate those that are excelling in learning.

One of the greatest things about Lessonly is its service. We provide free resources for downloading and a customer experience team at the ready to help clients with anything they need. Additionally, because we are always improving our product, we’re constantly implementing suggestions from clients into our software platform.

We believe that it’s people that make learning great. It’s people that create informative, engaging content, and it’s people that, when effectively learning, establish confidence and happiness in their jobs. We help them create better versions of themselves, so they can go on to feed the cycle of helping other learn and perform better. Those who are well-equipped with knowledge are proud to share that knowledge. Ultimately, the most effective training practices won’t work if you don’t have great learning. Great learning makes for great people, and vice versa.