Connecting the Employee Training Disconnects
What makes one organization more successful than the next? Usually that gets defined by the revenues brought in, the growth of those revenues year over year, how long a dividend has been distributed to its shareholders, and so on. And while those things can certainly be a barometer for success, those are the outcomes. But those are not what actually makes any organization successful. The easy, to the point answer is the organization's people, the employees, management, etc. But all organizations have people. So if the people are what makes an organization successful and all organizations have people, I'll ask the question again. What makes one organization more successful that the next?
The largest difference between an average organization and some of the most successful ones comes down to employee engagement. If the employees are engaged, the work is done more efficiently and the performance of the organization thrives. The amount of work (and revenue) lost due to a sluggish performance environment alone ought to shock organizations into focusing more on employee engagement. According to Gallup, disengaged employees have 37% higher absenteeism, 18% lower productivity and 15% lower profitability. When that translates into dollars, you're looking at the cost of 34% of a disengaged employee's annual salary, or $3,400 for every $10,000 they make. With that, employee engagement is quite literally valuable to every organization. As the leaders in elevating employee engagement, we talk alot about the Three Keys to Engagement: Employee Communication, an ELO performance environment, and creating a career of engagement for all employees through a Triboarding process, but there is another piece that builds engagement and tends to "fly under the radar". One that organizations, previously and especially now in our new "Will they, won't they, let's do hybrid!" workplace scenarios, tend to struggle with and provide adequately to employees.
Training. Dun dun dunnnn! Yes, training. Training is critical to employee engagement. According to a study conducted by the Dale Carnegie Training Center, 40% of employees leave the job within the year due to poor training. Through training you should be connecting your people to the organization and its mission and purpose (Here's a little more information on organizational purpose), connecting your people to their jobs by building capability and capacity within them, and connecting your people to themselves through continuous opportunities for learning and personal growth.
However, training isn't always easy, as most organizations fully realize, and the majority of the issues surrounding employee training were already present and have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 outbreak. What are the issues with employee trainings? That list truly depends on your organization, but here are the top four issues we have found to be fairly universal from organization to organization.
Geographic dispersion of employees and the expertise.
Having your employee population and the training expertise dispersed geographically creates multiple isses for employee training. First of all, let's start with the numbers. It's just plain expensive to conduct in-person trainings around the country or globe. There are instructor time and fees, travel time and fees, time the employees are having to spend out of the office and away from their actual jobs, space or training sites, and so on. It all adds up. Secondly, it makes it difficult to schedule trainings. Depending on the organization and how far the employees are dispersed, there will likely need to be multiple trainings at multiple training sites and getting all required employees scheduled for those trainings tends to be a nightmare. The next issue is the different leadership, cultures and areas of expertise that come with multiple trainings. This can, and most of the time does, lead to some inconsistencies that ultimately leads to confusion and employee frustration. And lastly, building off the last one, it tends to create a lack of connection between the employees and the organization's mission since not all employees are receiving the same training.
Opportunity
The trend of geographically disperse employees and experts is only going to increase as organizations realize they are no longer tied to talent is already located near their location or talent that is willing to move or travel. Fortunately, with technology, we are able to move past this barrier relatively easily. Online employee training gives us an excellent, and proven, option for training all our employees easier. It is much more cost-effective (no more travel and site costs), employees can complete the training on a schedule that is convenient for them, and all the employees are receiving the same training, no more inconsistencies. And as for the expertise, you can now find and work with the top talent around the globe for creating and leading online trainings without having to worry about and major scheduling. They can either help develop the training content or actually lead online session conversations at any time.
Existing trainings have to be too broad to be beneficial.
This issue is fairly simple and straight forward. The majority of employee trainings, in order to be cost effective, have to be created to cover broad topics, but in doing so lack the ability to be truly transformative, engaging and, quite frankly, beneficial. If your organization does provide in-depth, customized trainings, then a tip of the cap to them for recognizing the valuable need to provide this to the employees. This is rare and should not be taken for granted.
Opportunity
By turning to online training, you can produce high quality, customized and targeted trainings at a much cheaper cost. These targeted trainings, specifically developed for your organization and your people, provide a much richer learning experience as your employees can now take courses that are specifically tailored to their jobs and careers. And don't forget, a richer, more transformative learning experience creates more highly engaged employees. If they feel like their development is being poored into, it gives them a huge incentive to poor it back into the organization.
Trainings either do not exist where needed or there is an overload of generic trainings provided.
This issues tends to go in two directions. For in-house training there just isn't enough resources to be able to create targeted trainings, either in-person or online. An employee wants to learn how to better understand an accounting process, that's great! However, for such a specific request, the likelyhood of an organization having put together a training speficially for that procees is slim to none. On the other side, organization's today tend to rely on services such as LinkedIn Learning or Skillsoft to provide employees with a plethora of options for training to use at their disposal. These can be excellent tools, but what about the employee that wants to learn about an accounting process. Maybe their is something within the training platform about AN accounting process, but is it tailored to YOUR organization. I don't think so. So then you're left with an abundant amount of information, but a general lack of actual organizational-specific knowledge for employees to avail themselves of.
Opportunity
When, as an organization, we don't have certain trainings or the trainings we do have don't cover the content needed or wanted, who should we turn to in order to find out what is needed? Our people, that's right. Our people are absloutely our most valuable resource, and the knowledge and information that can be gained from them is quite literally infinite. All we have to do is ask. One of our mottos is if you want better employee engagement, you better engage your employees. Engaging them in something as simple as coming up with a list of organizational specific trainings increases employee engagement by instilling a sense of ownership and also gives you the information you're needing. Win-win. Once the content needed is discovered, turning that content into online training is the quickest and most cost-effective way to turn the feedback you have received into change. Employees want results. One of the most disengaging actions we see within organizations is non-action. Whether it's annual survey feedback or something as simple as a generated list of productive trainings, if nothing comes from it, what do you think the employees are going to hear the next time you ask for feedback? Probably crickets.
Continuous improvement of trainings is too slow or nonexistent.
I know we have all been through harrassment trainings or videos that look and feel as if the individuals are from the 90's. Well, that's because they are. And there is a reason companies tend to throw the same trainings at employees year after year, it's expensive to updated live or video trainings. They have to be re-thoughtout, re-written, essentially everything has to be re-done. And that takes time and money. And that's just for the trainings that actually do (eventually) get updated. There are some in-house trainings that never do. The information isn't outdated or irrelevant, so what's the point? Employee engagement. Just like a loaf of bread thats been left out for a week, training gets stale...and eventually moldy. That's just not a great way to recruit top-tier talent or retain the talent you do have. Trainings should be updated at least every few years to give it a fresh look. And back to the training services like Skillsoft, you can't update it. You're at the mercy of the training provider. 'Nuff said.
Opportunity
The opportunity for a lack of continuous or non-existent training improvement is fairly simple and by now you can probably guess what it is. Yes, you're correct! Online training. Understandably, updating in-person or live trainings, is a bear. Not so with customized online trainings. An entire training or specific sections of a training can be updated in a very short amount of time and keep your wallet fat. Just looking for fresher look? Easy. Within a day or two you can have the same content wrapped in a pretty new package so employees aren't getting the same training over and over. Decide a year later you would like some accountability or a measure of course effectiveness? No problem, just throw some learning checkpoints or quizzes in there. Again, quick and easy. Online training is extremely flexible and allows you to adapt much quicker than past training formats. Make the switch to online training today.
As you begin to plan out your training, remember, providing your employees with targeted options where they can truly benefit and grow both personally and professionally is a huge boost to employee engagement. Spending the time and resources upfront to build a solid training program tailored for your employees pays major dividends on the backend. Remember the outcomes of a successful organization we mentioned at the beginning? Achieving them and sustaining them requires an investment in the people who get you there.
One final note, another issue we come across when speaking with clients is that they simply don't know how to produce online trainings. They don't have a dedicated person or team who can create them and they don't know where to beginning looking for outside help. If you find yourself in this position, we can help. We are an employee engagement consultancy at our core with the ability to develop high quality online training, so we know what truly engages your people more than a standard online training authoring company.
You bring the training, we transform it. Let us be your online training partner. Your new and existing employees get the training they need in a safer and effective format. Let us help you make the switch.
We are an employee engagement consultancy at our core with the ability to develop online training, so we know what truly engages your people more than a standard online training authoring company. Contact us today at info@cornerstonelearning.com and let us partner with you to transform your training.
https://www.cornerstonelearning.com/welcome
https://www.cornerstonelearning.com/online-training-development
