Your Guide to Developing an Effective Employee Training Program

The right training acts as the foundation for a successful team. But a poor training experience could cause employees to leave en masse and cost your company a fortune. In fact, more than half of employees stated they would leave a job if companies didn’t offer the required training.

Fortunately, an effective employee training program is within reach for companies, whether they’re remote or in-office, as long as you take the appropriate steps.

At the core of these steps is a single principle: the human element. Every business is unique, filled with different people who have different needs. Build an employee training program based on your team’s needs and not anyone else’s. There are multiple steps to take that ensure you build training around the people who make your company tick.

Determine your team’s needs

Companies often use training as a remedy for a problem. For example, if you notice customers are unhappy with the experience they’re receiving from your salespeople, train your sales team on customer interactions.

But training doesn’t have to be reactionary. Existing employees are the ultimate resource for figuring out which learning gaps to fill. This information allows you to get ahead of those knowledge gaps and prevent a problem before it’s, well, a problem.

First, survey existing employees and ask them about any training shortcomings they experienced when they first joined your company. Ask them what they wish they knew before getting into the role and about their struggles. Take note of each response and highlight any repeated answers or themes. It’s also a good idea to talk to managers or department heads. Ask them about any shortcomings they notice in their team, or if recurring problems arise.

For example, an employee survey or even casual conversation might show there’s a large amount of misunderstanding around recent sales goals. Businesses can turn this knowledge into a training course on the latest sales goals.

Then ask your employees what kinds of training they felt were most effective, and if there are any training styles or content types they’d like to see more of. It’s possible the content of your training isn’t the issue, but the format is.

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Set objectives for your training programs

Once you’ve identified your company’s needs, it’s time to create attainable objectives for your training.

Start by speaking with department heads and leaders within your company to see what unmet business goals exist. For example, let’s say the marketing head tells you their department is struggling to use a new email marketing platform. This issue is a clear indicator that the team needs training on that tool.

Next, couple the unmet business goals or needs with the employee requests from the previous step. Use this combination to create objectives that fulfill training shortcomings while also achieving business goals.

For example, let’s say your team wants more video-based training. Meanwhile, your sales director mentioned that many customers have complained about the length of the sales process. With these two pieces of information, you could create a video training series that focuses on organization and efficiency within sales.

Utilize web-based learning

The definition of a modern workplace is rapidly evolving. Co-located offices are quickly becoming a thing of the past, meaning training needs to go digital (where it hasn’t already). This is where web-based learning comes in. Although digital training is a crucial next step, you’ll need to put a few things in place before diving into web-based learning.

The right learning management system (LMS) allows you to host courses online and track employee performance. Many LMS platforms even support gamification, which is a huge motivator for employees. In fact, 83% of people feel more motivated to complete training when it’s gamified.

Once your LMS is in place, you’re ready to make the training materials. Create courses that are widely usable across various LMS platforms. SCORM compliance is popular and secure and ensures your courses are compatible with most platforms. If you’re unsure where to start, read up on eLearning best practices and go from there. (Also, consider using a template to save yourself the time of making things from scratch.)

Lastly, take advantage of the digital format and make interactive courses. Interactive courses allow your team to engage with the learning and test out their knowledge in various scenarios. And creating this level of interactivity is easier than ever.

For example, you can create an interactive video animation with Vyond and Articulate Storyline 360. This combo makes it possible to create high-quality animation with branching storylines that your users can navigate through. The end result is an engaging learning experience that lends itself to repeat viewings.

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Measure objectives with specific training metrics

Before you launch any training, it’s important you know what it is you’re going to track. Training metrics are the best way to tell if a course is working and to get insights on how to make your course more effective.

While many companies have specific metrics they want to track, there are a few you can’t miss:

• Completion rate: Track the completion rate to see if your team’s completing the course. If the rate is anything but 100%, see what kind of communication your team has received around the training. Do people know about the training, or has it been sitting on your intranet with no promotion?
• Time to complete: Your team needs to complete their training, but it’s important that it’s not taking up all of their time. Keep a close eye on the completion time for each course to ensure it’s not a massive time sink.
• Course ratings: Most LMS platforms give people the option to rate a course after they finish it. See what kinds of feedback and ratings your courses are getting to look for areas of improvement. It’s also a good idea to request feedback via email or through surveys to your employees.
• Drop-off rate: If the completion is anything but 100%, there’s a good chance people are dropping off somewhere. Use your LMS to see what the drop-off rate is and what section is keeping people from finishing. This likely indicates a problem with the course. It could be too long, too difficult, or not rewarding enough.
• Engagement: Look at the completion rate, time spent on courses, comments, and feedback to get a sense of the overall course engagement. It’s safe to say engagement’s climbing if all of those numbers are also climbing.

As you create and launch course after course, take note of any knowledge gaps you have around metrics and engagement. If you find yourself questioning a certain aspect of your course’s performance, research additional metrics to track in the future.

Iterate on future course efforts

Your first course, or even the first few courses, will be largely experimental. You’re seeing what does and doesn’t work and what your team does and doesn’t like. What’s important is that you’re learning from these eLearning courses, too.

Track each course’s performance, take note of the reviews and feedback your team leaves, and apply this knowledge to each future course.

A lot of effort goes into creating an eLearning course, and by tracking the progress of each one and expanding on future efforts, you’re ensuring that’s time and effort well spent.

Use Vyond for training and eLearning

Remote work has grown 44% in five years, not counting the workplace shifts brought about by COVID-19. It’s not enough for training to be effective. Training needs to be future-proofed. Going digital and embracing video are two of the best ways to deliver a great experience today and for years to come. They’re also two great steps toward developing an effective employee training program.

Video used to be costly to create, but with Vyond’s animation platform, it’s more affordable and easier than ever before. Vyond is easy to use, empowering those with no design or animation experience with the ability to create beautiful, engaging videos.

Digital learning, and the general digital transformation, isn’t a trend — it’s here to stay. Vyond makes it possible to go digital, create engaging content, and save time. Start your 14-day free trial and see how easy it is to plug into the digital world of remote training. 

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