A training strategy is one of the best ways in which a company can create an environment of continued learning and upskilling. Despite such a benefit, most companies fail to use skills development facilitators to create effective training strategies for their employees, thereby missing out on a great opportunity for boosting the company’s overall success. In this article, I’d like to give you a rundown on how to create a training strategy.
What’s A Training Strategy?
Besides helping employees learn and upskill, a training strategy also…
- Provides a long-term business plan
An effective training strategy is great for mapping out the future. Where do you see your business in the upcoming years? What skills do employees need to learn in order to make that a reality? Having a training strategy can help answer these questions.
- Builds relationships between trainers and trainees
A great skills development facilitator knows that training isn’t simply about teaching people how to complete a task. Good training also builds relationships between the trainer and trainees.
RELATED: Read about our Professional Skills Development Services
Who Needs a Skills Development Facilitator?
While it’s easy enough to claim every business needs a training strategy & facilitator to carry it out, I believe it’s better to look at this from a different angle. To do this, let’s separate the two ways in which companies tend to approach training.
Training As a Necessary Evil
The first way organizations approach training is by seeing it as a necessary evil. While unfortunate, this is all too common and something I’ve witnessed over decades as a skills development facilitator.
→ Training in this fashion tends to be more operational, and has little benefit for the company or employees.
Training As a Strategic Vision
On the flip side, some companies look upon training with purpose, and have a strategic vision for training.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that companies who take training seriously are better able to reap its benefits. This is depicted in statistics by Devlin Peck that state, companies with comprehensive employee training programs have 218% higher income per employee than companies without formalized training.
→ Training in this fashion not only has economical rewards, but also improves employee retention, productivity, and development.
Why Are Effective Training Strategies More Important Now Than Ever?
By now I’d hope you’re convinced about the value of proper training strategies. However, if you need any more convincing, it’s worth considering how rapidly evolving the world is, and how much information is disseminated on a day-to-day basis.
While there are numerous ways to depict the spread of knowledge, Buckminster Fuller first identified its rapidity in 1980’s with his Knowledge Doubling Curve. This stated how up until the 20th century, knowledge doubled every century. According to Cognia, the rate has only increased since then.
→ This is why effective training strategies are so vital. Companies and their employees need to keep up with a constant flux of new information to effectively move forward in day to day operations!
What Do You Need To Focus On When Creating Training Strategies?
An effective training strategy is one that creates an environment characterized by learning and flexibility. Essentially, people can acquire new skills, build on existing skills, and are comfortable in this constantly moving information age. So, how do you create this type of strategy? Below are three elements you must prioritize.
Figure Out a Training Method
A skills development facilitator’s first job when building a training strategy is to figure out the method in which training will proceed. This can range from having an in-house training team, hiring trainers from outside a company, or a blend of the two.
Factors like your budget, time constraints, as well as the presence of in-house expertise on training topics can determine what method you decide to go with.
Figure Out How Training Can Partner With a Business
Once you have a training team set in place, it’s important to figure out how that team can align with a business’s needs and end up partnering with the business.
What I see happening all too often is that when training is required, a training team is summoned to help. Training then takes place and once it’s finished, trainees go their own way having learned or retained little of what they were taught.
This is a waste of time, money, and effort. However, so long as training teams partner with a business to where they can have conversations about strategy, goals, and training content itself, they can prevent a business from wasting those resources.
Figure Out How Training Can Connect To Company Strategy
Once a training team partners with a company, it’s possible to start connecting that team with a company’s strategy. Above and beyond, it’s necessary to have a symbiotic relationship between the training team and company. This allows for freedom of conversation in which both parties are bringing their needs and perspectives to the table.
Related: Learn about how Train The Trainer can help your business!
What Are The Steps To Create a Training Strategy?
Start by answering the following questions to see if it lines up with the overall strategy of your business:
What Do People Need To Learn?
The first step to creating a training strategy is understanding what people need to learn. This involves talking to managers and employees about the skills they need to do their job and areas they feel they might be lacking in.
What Value Do We Provide?
Then it’s worth fleshing out the value you provide as a company. This can be the products or services you sell to customers, or the relationships various teams have with clients.
What Skills Make That Value Possible?
Once value is understood, it’s time to figure out the skills needed to make that value possible. This is where you can figure out what exactly you need to do during training sessions.
What Training Model Do We Need?
At this point, you’re ready to build a model for the training team to utilize once it begins training. On the flip side, you can also set up tasks for trainers to perform.
What Do We Need To Partner Trainers With A Business
Lastly, this is where you need to figure out how to partner trainers with a business. This is vital, as, like I mentioned in the previous section, skills development facilitators and businesses need to have a symbiotic relationship.
How Do You Execute A Training Plan?
For the sake of brevity, I won’t go too deep into executing a training plan here. What I will talk about are a couple of key elements needed.
- For one, you need to talk to a business and highlight your overall training strategy in a way that’s digestible. A flow chart is useful, as well as a clear step-by-step plan for how you plan to set up the training.
- Once that’s taken care of, you’re ready to start implementing the actual strategy. So long as a company understands what you’re doing, why, and the gaps in their business, you can build intrinsic motivation for training sessions on their part.
- Finally, it’s worth noting that training takes longer than a few weeks. I recommend 2 – 3 months for building a solid training strategy. Don’t rush things!
How Can I Help?
With 20 years experience, including impactful roles at Google and Apple, I, Thijs van Loon, am here to help. My suite of services has been meticulously designed to propel your team to new heights.
One area of expertise is in Professional Skills Development, which can cover anything from sales training, team management, and train the trainer.
By leveraging training certifications from Google and Apple, in addition to my certifications in NLP and Psych-K, I offer tailored, practical solutions that deliver immediate results to your business. By working together, I can help you empower the individuals in your company and your business at large, whether in Vietnam, Singapore or other locations in Southeast Asia.