Annabelle Fee gives us the basics of training effectiveness.
Training staff is one hurdle all employers must jump. It can be a stressful ordeal if you do not have the right methods of conducting training. Well trained staff are one of the key elements to a successful business. They possess the necessary skills to cater to the needs of your consumers while helping to maintain a good picture of your business.
Training staff can be extremely beneficial to you as a business owner as you do not need to constantly be there for things to run smoothly. You can get weekly reports from your managers and still get massive profits.
Well trained employees also help a business stay ahead of its competition. Your goal is to be the best in the business and top-notch training is one of the best ways to achieve this.
Measuring results is important
This is a very important part of training, especially with new employees. If you want new employees to catch on quicker, you need to set milestones along the training process. The end game could even be the withdrawal of the employment opportunity at your company for those that fail to hit targets. At the end of the day, you need qualified individuals to work with you.
Don’t be afraid to give constructive criticism. Give certificates of completion to increase motivation.
During the training process, come up with ways to measure the results of the activities being taught. You can measure results by giving out tests and quizzes every week until the training ceases. Evaluate the results to see which employees are lagging behind and concoct a plan to help them catch up. Don’t be afraid to give constructive criticism. Give certificates of completion to increase motivation.
After training has been completed, ensure you get feedback from supervisors. Are the employees applying the knowledge they gained? And if so, are they doing it with confidence? Human beings are very competitive in nature.
Everyone would love to be on top. This need to be the best could work in your favour because staff members will actually take the training process seriously. This means they will be learning much quicker than if there was a lack of motivation.
How to measure the effectiveness of staff training
There are a number of ways to measure the effectiveness of the training conducted in your organisation, and these include questionnaires, quizzes, and interviews after the fact. However, all of this requires planning, so that you know what you are trying to find out, and so you are really clear on how you will evaluate the training.
Though Kirkpatrick, for example, may be a very effective model for measuring the effectiveness of staff training, it is important to note that what it shows is that there are a number of ways to evaluate staff training and all of them show us one of the key impacts of training.
For example, if staff do not enjoy their training, and do not engage, they will not learn, and so it is your and your trainer’s responsibility to ensure that training is engrossing enough to get the message across.
Further to this, the goal of your training is to have some sort of impact (be this on your employees’ behaviour of some key performance indicators), and thus you need to have a way of measuring concrete behaviour changes that result from the training.
Finally, training needs to be financially viable, as good staff development costs a lot of money. Therefore, you need a foolproof way to find out whether it is worth the money: whether it is having the desired impact on your company’s bottom line.
Get your staff involved
Another key message is to ensure that you involve your staff in your training process, and even in your choices of which training you provide. This is because, if your staff have a buy in to the process, then they will be more likely to involve themselves in their training, and will thus learn more and be more productive employees.
About the author
Annabelle Fee is part of the Content and Community team at SmileTutor, sharing valuable content to their own community and beyond.
