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5 Tips For How To Create An Employee Training Program

— by Noel Diem

Employee EngagementEmployee Training ProgramLearning developmentLearning Management SystemManagementOnboarding

Employee training programs are one of the most important kits that HR leaders need to develop. Often, these kits will pass down from one generation to another – you may have gotten the framework of an employee training program from either a mentor you had, someone you took a course with, or even the person who had the job before you.

However, those people likely didn’t live in today’s world with all of its struggles, focuses, and types of workforces. 

Define Employee Training Program

An employee training program is a set of steps, courses, meetings, and assessments that a new hire needs to complete before they are considered a regular employee. This could be something used in name only, or it could be a list of requirements that are necessary before a new employee gets access to tools, is allowed to work on projects alone, or is trusted to make decisions.

Your employee training program can be as thorough or as basic as you need it to be. We always suggest overplanning for onboarding events, but sometimes a basic training is better than no training at all. Don’t let the lack of a training program stop you from giving your employees the best possible start.

To learn more about onboarding programs and what to include in them, you can read more about onboarding here or download our free onboarding checklist.

Employee Training Programs Should Start With The Basics

Start your employee training with the basics that you want your employees to know and see how they react. You want to be able to look into analytics to see how your employees performed, whether they were engaged, and whether the work you put into the training program actually resulted in improvements. 

Onboarding is a great place to start, but it isn’t necessarily the only place you can start. Maybe you need to do some kind of training on a new program or initiative with your existing employees. Perhaps you have to do sensitivity training or DEI training

If you are building an employee training program for the first time, existing employees are likely to give you better feedback. New hires that you are still onboarding are likely to say only positive things, so you need to find a way to ask them questions in a meaningful way.

Use a Variety of Training Methods

You don’t want to be boring and stick to only one type of training for your employees. When you do this, you aren’t reaching all of their needs. There are many different types of learning styles and creating all slideshows, for example, won’t help you reach everyone. 

While it is easy to make everything the same, it isn’t advisable. Instead, you want to vary your content and training methods. One way you can do this is by investing in learning management software.

At Trakstar, our software uses all of the following to create courses:

  • PowerPoint (including animation, audio and embedded video)
  • Microsoft Word (including Office 2010)
  • Adobe Acrobat PDF
  • All major video types (examples: .mov, .mp4, .avi, etc)
  • YouTube Video Links
  • GoToMeeting recordings
  • Adobe Captivate 7, 8, 9
  • Articulate Storyline 1 and 2

Even better, you’ll be organizing your content so that you can grab it whenever you need it.

Know What Works and What Doesn’t

You have to know what works for your company and what doesn’t work. This can be hard! It can be easier if you have a company full of people who learn the same way and are motivated by the same things – but this is rare. Instead, you will need to build varied training modules and courses so that everyone can find value. 

You may think that people will understand the training and simply “do” it because they are getting paid to be employees, but that isn’t always the case. Instead, it is HR’s responsibility to figure out training sessions that work, and encourage employee participation.

Refresh Company Employee Training

You can’t just make one version of your employee training and think you are done forever – it doesn’t work like that! You need to constantly think about ways to make your training better. This doesn’t need to be something you set time aside for every month. With Trakstar Insights, you can get a birds’ eye view of your training programs, which helps you to see where people are struggling, where they are succeeding, and what courses are the most effective. From there, you can focus on making changes only to the ones that need your help.

This frees up your brain space (and time!) to think about how to improve your employee training program and do the work that actually makes an impact on your employees.

Automate The Process For Easier Access – And Establishing Importance

Another thing you want to do is automate your process so that your employees aren’t missing out on key training moments. If you have to enroll each employee into the training program one-by-one, you are likely to miss someone. This can make them feel like they don’t matter to you or like the training isn’t all that important because you didn’t take the time to ensure everything went smoothly.

Either choice is a bad one, so you want to avoid missing employees. With a system such as Trakstar Learn, which is part of Trakstar’s platform, you can automatically enroll entire departments, onboarding classes, or everyone in your workforce easily.

Want To Design the Best Employee Training Program? Think Trakstar First!

Trakstar is one of the leading HR platforms that helps you make smarter decisions around your hiring, educating, engaging, and retaining your employees. With the help of Trakstar’s software, you are able to hire new employees faster and with ease. We’ll help you post your job qualifications on the top job boards, vet employees, and get them scheduled with your team. From there, you can use Trakstar’s platform to onboard and engage with your employee throughout their tenure at your company, creating a complete employee training program that you can monitor. Even better, Insights for Trakstar Learn helps you to monitor the effectiveness of your employees and the training you create. When armed with this data, you can make the small but powerful changes you need to have an even better employee training program.

To learn more about Trakstar’s platform, including Trakstar Learn, Trakstar Hire, Trakstar Perform, and the powerful Trakstar Insights, you can schedule a personalized demo today.

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Who is Trakstar?

Trakstar is a multi-product HR software provider helping organizations put the people back in people management. Develop and align your staff through better recruiting and applicant tracking, performance management, and learning management. For a more integrated solution to talent management, check out our website and request a live demonstration today.