How to Ensure Effective Employee Training - An HR Software Solution Help
Every human resources executive dedicates time, energy, and money into their company employees. By doing so, they not only hope to establish culture in their company’s business, but they hope to establish ways to make it lucrative. As the company grows, you, as HR Management Executive, will onboard more employees, again hoping to make greater profitability for the ownership. However, there comes a point for every company where you simply cannot hire more employees, either because there is a cash crunch, a downturn or simply it does not make fiscal sense. Companies have found that instead of investing in physical capital by building another office, it can be a lot more efficient and cost-effective, to invest in their existing human capital and expand their capabilities. Also, there are a myriad of potential lawsuits related to uninformed employees therefore for 2 reasons you need to invest in employee training. Employee training can mean a lot of things.
For example, it may be safety training to teach your employees about properly using machinery. It could also be sexual harassment training or other similar training to inform your employees about the company’s policies on sexual harassment or even dating within the company. These types of trainings are usually part of an introduction to the company and would likely be completed within the first few weeks of hiring your new employee. This article, however, focuses on enhancing performance once an employee has been established at your company. In other words, employee training can also mean expanding or sharpening one’s skills set in order to be more productive. There are several reasons to invest in employee training, however lets review the steps involved in establishing an ongoing program.
1. Decide on training with your employee. Everyone has been forced to do a task and it is usually not an enjoyable experience, or not as enjoyable as it could be if you had been allowed to be a part of the decision making process. When discussing the workplace, that means involve your employee in deciding which training works best for them. Consider this conversation your management team could have with an employee at their evaluation review: Manager: “Hello Jim. Thanks for another great year with ABC Supplies. As we review your evaluation, it seems that you do great quality work but that you have difficulty meeting deadlines. The company is willing to invest in employee training so you can sharpen your skill set. We have a computer skills training class that I think would really help you to get your work done faster so you don’t have as much trouble with deadlines. We are also offering an operational effectiveness and efficiency class that may help if you would prefer that course. Because you know yourself better than I do, which training do you think would work best for you?” Jim: “Well, I really am having difficulty because I do not have the ‘computer finesse’ of some of my co-workers so I would like to try the computer skills training class.” Manager: “That sounds great Jim! I will sign you up and then I will continue to check up with you to see how you like the training and if you think it helps. By next evaluation I bet you will have raised your marks in regards to meeting deadlines.”
2. Pay attention to your employee during and after training. Not only did the owner/manager in the previous example offer Jim a choice so that he would be more motivated to complete the training, he (or she) also assured Jim that Jim would not be left to the wolves. When an owner (or manager) makes a conscious effort to take part in the training and evaluate whether or not the training helped, it ensures that an improvement does occur and increases employee morale.
3. Track the training. To ensure training is doing its job, that is, improving skills to increase productivity, tracking must be done. There are different HRM Software programs that can be purchased or an online HRIS can be utilized. Obviously, there are large scale Training solutions that not only schedule training but book classroom and post grades when applicable.
4. Congratulate your employee on their success. Like step 3, this is a branch off of step 2; a small business owner (or manager) needs to check in with their employee after training to see if any progress has been made. If the employee indeed has made gains, whether they are big or small, they need to feel appreciated. Whether that is a congratulatory card or comment or an extra day off, step 4 really encourages the employee to begin implementing their new skills because he or she now has motivation to do so. If the employee was uncooperative or did not take well to the training, there are a couple of steps which can be taken. First, the employee needs to know that you were expecting more from him or her.
If you think there is still a chance to improve, retry the above steps, making sure you fully involve the employee in the decision to complete employee training. The last tip brings up an important point: you are only as strong as your weakest link. Employee training can be done on a personal level or a divisional level (if your company is large enough to have several divisions) but the effects can benefit the whole company. Employee training increases productivity for those being trained and also motivates others to step up their game to keep up. Additionally, the whole work atmosphere can be enlivened as workers become excited to utilize and share their new skills.
Employee retention improves, as does profits! Employee training can be incredibly valuable to a company, especially to the company that understands the importance of employee training and is willing to take the necessary steps to ensure that it is carried out effectively. The best advice to ensure this is to track employee progress. Whether you, as the small business owner, decide to use Training or HR Software is not as important as you deciding to track the progress. After all, you want to make sure that you are making a good investment and training along with Pay for Performance policies are the best way to go.
About the Author
Carolyn Sokol writes about issues that may affect small businesses such as HR Management Software (HRM Software) and HR Payroll Technology. She is a founder of PEOcompare.com which helps match small businesses to the right HR service provider for their particular needs. Her background is in marketing and communications, employee education and training, development of policies and procedures and the ongoing delivery of outstanding service to customers. Remember to Reference Check HRIS Software!Copyright © 2011 by www.compareHRIS.com & www.PEOcompare.com All rights reserved.