In tough trading conditions, creating an effective training strategy is essential to the achievements of the business and benefits both employer and employee alike. For employers, it is worth bearing in mind that employees are more loyal to companies that value their personal development – use your training strategy to create better company performance and improved staff retention rates.
But where to start? This article will aim to give you six simple procedures that you can begin to implement in your business tomorrow.
1. Align your training plan with your business strategy
Your starting point is your organisation’s strategic plan. If you have a clear idea of where your business is going in the future, then you also need to understand what skills and competences your employees will need to support that vision. For example: if your company’s strategic objective is to create a digital edition of each magazine, but you don’t have the staff skill set to do this, then you are going to be unable to complete this objective. By aligning your training plan with your overall strategic plan, you will create a synergy linked to the vision and values of the company. The training and development strategy that you create will then support your business moving forward.
The CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) is quick to point out that “identifying learning and development needs is a key aspect of effective learning and talent development. However, it can be a rigid, box ticking exercise if it is not aligned with real time organisational requirements.” In other words, be sure that there is a real business need and that it is aligned to your company’s strategic plan to ensure you get the most benefit from undertaking such a review.
2. Highlight specific skill gaps in your company
Being able to evaluate whether the training has helped the company achieve its designated business targets is the crucial element, and this can only be done if you ensure you have built a learning and development programme that has measurable results. Getting this right all happens in the initial training needs analysis. So how do you go about carrying this out for your organisation?
This plan can be cascaded down to the individual by carrying out a thorough needs and skills analysis within your business. This will help you identify what the real need for training and development is, and can also be linked to personal development plans for the individual. By comparing existing capabilities with your company’s strategic skill requirements, you can highlight any skills gaps and ultimately help ensure that there is sufficient capability to sustain business performance.
A training needs analysis can be undertaken at a number of levels depending on the size of your company and what is required.
* For the entire company: this would provide you with a wealth of information to help you understand the amount and types of learning needed to ensure all your employees have the right capabilities to deliver your strategic plan.
* For a specific department: in the fluid world of the publishing industry, where changes in working practices can happen regularly, carrying out a training needs analysis by department can give you flexibility, help you identify learning requirements quickly, and react to opportunities for new ways of working (sourcing your training accordingly).
* For an individual: this would help link an employee’s personal development needs to those of the business, and could be carried out as part of a development review.
Once you have agreed how in-depth you require your training needs analysis to be, the next stage is to decide how to collect the data. This can be done in various ways:
* By aligning current job descriptions / appraisal information with your company’s strategic plan and highlighting any skills gaps.
* Interviews with senior managers, which will give you more detail around job descriptions, core competencies and possible gaps. Be sure to get the buy-in of all key stakeholders in this process as this will make it easier when rolling out your training programme at a later date.
* Interviews / questionnaires or surveys with employees.
* Any company competence framework / key performance indicators and analysis of levels of competence achieved that you might have.
It might sound daunting, but it all depends on the size of your organisation and what level of information you need. If you require root and branch changes to your business practices, then collecting as much information as possible will allow you to make an in-depth analysis of how you need to support your employees in order to make these changes. If you require a quick and simple approach focused on just one area of the business, then obviously the process can be tailored accordingly.
Having collated all the information, the next step is to decide on the output, and it needs to be a document that you can put to good use straight away – not the business equivalent of War and Peace, doomed to gather dust on a shelf. This document should simply: identify the training needs; prioritise these needs according to which are most strategically critical; and then set out plans for training and development using methods that will best deliver your required results.
3. Prioritise your training needs
Once you have completed your training and development plan, you need to prioritise the learning needs that you have identified versus the budget allocated for your company’s development. You should discuss all of this process with key stakeholders such as board directors and senior management team to ensure total agreement with the process.
Once you have a clear idea of your employees’ skills gaps in relation to your organisation’s business strategy, the final challenge is to decide how the learning is delivered. There are various options:
* a “classroom” training programme with a trainer
* an e-learning approach
* coaching
* a combination of all of the above
Using a training programme supported by coaching can help translate the learning (in a training room) with changes in behaviour (via one to one coaching sessions) that can have great results in organisational performance.
4. Source the right training for your business
Time to go out to the training market place and source the right product for the needs of your business. If nothing on the menus of training providers quite fits the bill, design a bespoke employee training session yourself. Try to find providers who are willing to customise their offerings to match your specific business needs. This type of bespoke training is particularly useful when you have large numbers of staff to train, or if you want to develop training around business specific objectives or company processes.
There are some factors here to consider. If the training is for a large amount of staff or the competencies you are looking to achieve are very company-specific, then bespoke training might give you the best results for your budget. If, however, you have a small team and some generic competencies then off the shelf will probably suit you best. Timing is also a key consideration. Bespoke training takes longer to implement due to the nature of planning and designing the course - but then it will be able to meet your company-specific needs. In this current business climate, cost will also be a factor; the cost-effectiveness of bespoke training versus off the shelf will have to be something you discuss with your finance manager.
E-learning is still a relatively new approach, but growing in popularity - in a recent survey, 47% of UK employees had taken part in an e-learning session. Crucially, for publishing businesses where more employees are starting to work remotely, e-learning can give the flexibility of access from anywhere at any time. However, the CIPD recommends that any e-learning is more effective when combined with other forms of learning.
5. Get your employees engaged
It is important to create a context for the employee about training and development, and explain why the new skills or skill enhancement is necessary. If your employee understands the link between the training and their job role, then you can enhance the impact of the training further. Ultimately, you want the employee to understand the link between the training and their personal ability to help achieve the organisation's business plan and goals.
6. Make it measurable
Try to ensure that any training and development you book has measurable objectives and specified outcomes that will transfer immediately back in to your business. Certainly, if you are answerable to a finance director for showing return on investment, then this is key! Bespoke training can again help here to ensure it has clearly stated objectives with measurable outcomes. In essence, your training and development programme should return the employee to work equipped with the skill or information promised in the objectives that can be implemented immediately.
Six simple steps to implementing a learning and development review that can be summed up as follows: you need to be able to identify your business needs, design a training programme to fulfil those needs, deliver it to your employees and then evaluate its effectiveness. Remember, it is not about ticking boxes, it is about helping your employees gain skills and competences to achieve your company’s strategic plan and move your business forward in a competitive world. Good luck!
References:
Learning Evaluation by Frances Bee and Roland Bee
Learning Needs Analysis and Evaluation by Frances Bee and Roland Bee (both titles published by CIPD)
