With all the things that small business owners (SBOs) have on their plates each day it’s a wonder that employees receive any training at all. Yet, it is the well-trained employees that allow you to provide products and services and stay in business.
So, let’s take a look at your training program by having you ask yourself some questions.
Let’s start with, “Why do I train my employees?”
I hope you said that you train to fulfill some specific need. If you did not know why you train employees or are training to provide some undefined benefit, you will want to take a more intimate look at your training program.
However most SBOs know they need to meet specific needs. This could be a need to be in compliance with a regulation. It may be a need to provide knowledge or a skill that allows a new employee to perform the job. It may be to correct some performance deficiency, improve quality, improve retention, reduce stress in the workplace, or any number of other reasons.
“How do I design training?”
With a specific-need in mind, you can plan and design a training activity to fulfill the need. The training will be specific to an objective; it will be designed to actively engage the employee in the training and it will allow you to measure the results of the training against your objective.
“How do I conduct your training?”
I would guess that most of your training is accomplished in small groups or individually, as needed. This is often the most difficult part – getting the right people in the right place at the right time to accomplish meaningful training.
Once together, you need to make sure that everyone is participating in the training and has the opportunity to ask questions and receive meaningful answers.
“How do I know if the training was effective?”
Educators use various ways of to evaluate whether or not training was effective on various levels.
I would suggest that SBOs are mainly concerned with one specific level – has the training need been met and confirmed by an on-the-job observation? In other words, can you observe that the person has “absorbed” the training and placed it into action?
This type evaluation also provides the opportunity for you to reinforce the learning by providing appropriate feedback to the employee. Saying “yes, you are doing that correctly” is an excellent way to let the employees know that they are performing appropriately.
“How do I manage my training?”
You will need to keep accurate records of who attended the training and maintain those records as a way of managing who has received the training and who still needs it.
Keeping records of supervisor observations relative to the training is also important.
In this way, you can identify additional training needs or confirm that the needs have been met.
And, we come to, “How do I do it?”
A proper training program takes a lot of effort to set up and maintain. With all the other things going on it only makes sense to use every tool at your disposal.
In the next series of posts, we’ll start to look at the training cycle and the tools you have to craft expert training for your company.
