Business and industry articles

Tips for Creating a Successful Training Regimen

Skill development is pivotal to organizational success. Still, when faced with the need for training, many organizations don't have a game plan. In the Know asked Hennepin Technical College's customized training experts Ed Penney and Jean Lubke to share their tips on how to create a strategic and tactical plan that will advance the goals of an organization.

1. Identify Your Training Need. Are you launching a new product? Having trouble finding skilled workers? Implementing a new computer system? "Before you do anything, you should define your organization's pains. What is your department's current reality?" asks Penney, a seasoned coach and facilitator who has 20 years of experience consulting with Fortune 500 firms.

   Lubke, who spent 17 years designing training departments and processes at Imation and Unisys, also stresses getting to the core of your training needs. "Is your staff's performance lacking because of a skills deficiency? Or does a new technology or a new product line warrant new workforce capabilities? These are valid cries for training."

2. Define Your Specific Training Goals. What do you really want to accomplish? Get specific. Link training to performance and learning to standard business results. Making such links will mean figuring out where knowledge, learning and training have the greatest impact.

   With so many variables, many companies make the mistake of trying to ascertain the return on their training investment up-front. Instead, Penney advises clients to plan for results in the area of behavioral change. "I call it 'Return on People.' If you isolate the behaviors you want to see changed, we can always train to organizational change," says Penney. "The extrapolation is, if they demonstrate these new behaviors, what impact will that have on your challenge or problem?"

3. Ask for Staff Buy-In. Make certain your staff shares your challenge. "Do they share in the pain?" asks Penney. "Employees need to know what's in it for them. When they see the relevancy of training, they may start to think, 'If I can help fix this situation, I will be a hero.'"

   Making the decision about who should attend training might best be answered by your employees. "Don't ask yourself, 'Who should attend?'" says Penney. "Ask your employees, 'Why should you attend?' If your employees can't answer, maybe they're not candidates for training."

   Lubke agrees. "If your staff is not interested in developing the skills you've recommended, you have a problem that training won't address."

4. Determine a Roll-Out Plan. Timing is everything. "No learning happens in training," says Lubke. "It happens after training." If your new system won't be in place for two months after training, for example, employees will be hard pressed to remember what they were taught.
   
   
5. Demonstrate Management Support. In order for training to make a positive impact on your organization, you need staff and management in harmony, convinced that training is a priority and that you should invest the time and resources to make it so. "Start by not making any calls to your staff when they're at training," advises Lubke about the frequent distractions employees commonly encounter.
   
   
6. What should you do when employees return from training? Don't expect change to happen overnight if you're not fostering development of their new skills. Be prepared to ensure change happens. "Meet with individual employees to determine what barriers might be in their way toward a successful implementation," says Lubke. Show that you see training as a privilege and an opportunity for growth. It will take you a long way towards creating the culture of a learning organization.