Learning and Training

WHAT IS TRAINING SUCCESS?

January 17, 2023

Version number: 1
Date created: January 17, 2023
Learning Objective

By the end of the training, the participants will be able to:

1. Learn the purpose and importance of training.

2. Learn the benefits of training for employees and organization.
3. Learn to create and develop effective training program.
4. Establish ways to evaluate training success.
Training Outline

I. Introduction: How do you make training successful?

II. What is the purpose and importance of training?
III. Benefits of training employees for an organization.
IV. How to Develop an Effective Training Program?
V. How to Create an Effective Training Program in 7 Steps.
VI. 5 Ways to Evaluate Training Success
I. Introduction

TRAINING
FOR SUCCESS
A successful training is one that gives
your employees the knowledge they
need in a format that is simple to
understand in a way that helps
productivity.
Why training is key to success?

Training gives everyone a great understanding of their responsibilities

and the knowledge and skills they need to do that job. This will enhance
their confidence which can also improve their overall performance.
I. How do you make training successful?

Strategic training and development is the process of designing specific employee training programs that
directly align with business needs. Training with a strategic focus develops the capabilities and tools that
employees need to successfully carry out their jobs.

A. How to Create an Effective Training Program in 7 Steps

1. Assess Your Training Needs.

2. Set Training Goals and Objectives.
3. Invest in Training Technology.
4. Choose the Employee Training Method.
5. Develop Training Materials.
6. Implement Your Employee Training Program.
7. Evaluate and Monitor Your Employee Training Program.
B. 5 Elements of a successful training program

1. Conduct An Assessment of Current Training Needs.

2. Spark Motivation by Asking Questions.
3. Write Out SMART Learning Objectives For Employees.
4. Identify Workers Who Can Act as Teachers.
5. Give Employees the Chance to Apply What They've Learned.
How do you say training went well?

“I think that the training went well. I gained new tools and information
that has already helped me.” “I really felt I got a lot out of the training—I
truly appreciated it!” “Very useful and informative.” “I really thought it
was good for us as a staff to look at another way of doing things.
II. What is the purpose and importance of training?

From the point of view of the individual employee, there are three main aims of training: Improve the
individual's level of awareness. Increase an individual's skill in one or more areas of expertise. Increase an
individual's motivation to perform their job well.

Training is the process of enhancing the skills, capabilities and knowledge of employees for doing a
particular job. Training process molds the thinking of employees and leads to quality performance of
employees. It is continuous and never ending in nature.

How does training help employees?

Many businesses invest in employee training because it can increase staff motivation, improve productivity and
the quality of work.

Employees who are trained are more likely to have a long-term commitment to their employer, as well as perform
better at work.
III. Benefits of training employees for an organization
(i) Economy in Operations: Trained personnel will be able to make better and economical use of materials and equipment’s. Wastage
will be low. In addition, the rate of accidents and damage to machinery and equipment will be kept to the minimum by the well-
trained employees. These will lead to less cost of production per unit
(ii) Greater Productivity: A well trained employee usually shows greater productivity and higher quality of work-output than an
untrained employee. Training increases the skills of the employees in the performance of a particular job. An increase in the skills
usually helps to increase both quantity and quality of output.
(iii) Uniformity of Procedures: With the help of training, the best available methods of work can be standardized and made available to
all employees. Standardization will make high levels of performance rule rather than the exception.
(iv) Less Supervision: If the employees are given proper training, the responsibility of supervision is lessened. Training does not
eliminate the need for supervision, but it reduces the need for detailed and constant supervision.
(v) Systematic Imparting of Skills: A systematic training program helps to reduce the learning time to reach the acceptable level of
performance. The employees need not learn by trial and error or by observing others and waste time if the formal training program
exists in the organization.
(vi) Creation of Inventory of Skills: When totally new skills are required by an organization, it has to face great difficulties in
employment. Training can be used in spotting out promising men and in removing defects in the selection process. It is better to
select and train employees from within the organization rather than seek the skilled employees from outside sources.
(vii) Higher Morale: The morale of employees is increase if they are given proper training. A good training program will mold
employees’ attitude to achieve support for organizational activities and to obtain greater cooperation and loyalty. With the help of
training, dissatisfaction, complaints, absenteeism and turnover can be reduced among the employees.
IV. How to Develop an Effective Training Program (2023)

A. Rational

A survey of CEOs found that 80% are worried about the availability of talent with desirable, key skills – and more than half struggle to find
competent new talent to fill open roles.

The rapid evolution of new technology – and related skills – make it challenging for organizations to maintain their foothold in the increasingly
competitive landscape. On one hand, digital transformation is rendering many technologies and skills permanently obsolete, while increasing the
demand for others. On the other hand, the cutthroat competition for finding and recruiting top talent makes it challenging for organizations to retain
and hire employees based on their needs and requirements.

These factors make quality employee training crucial for companies that want to maintain a competitive edge, retain their top talent, boost profits, and
keep their workforce up-to-date with the latest industry knowledge, skills, and trends.

However, creating a training program isn’t as simple as purchasing courses and mandating attendance and completion. Learning and development
(L&D) teams need to thoughtfully craft an L&D strategy to create a collaborative and democratic learning process to efficiently launch an effective
employee training program.

If you are struggling to launch your employee training strategy, this guide will take you on the journey of creating a training program for your
organization that provides real results.
B. What Is the Goal of Employee Training Programs?

Employee training is an ongoing process where organizations facilitate development of their employees to
acquire new knowledge and skillsets that are required of them to reach their full potential and optimum
performance. The primary purpose of employee training is to achieve a behavior change or develop a new
skill of those trained – enabling them to do their job better.
C. Here are some specific objectives of employee training:

• Higher Productivity: Training empowers your employees to be more effective and efficient at their jobs. It improves
employee engagement which in turn increases productivity.

• Higher Employee Retention: Conducting continuous training programs in your organization makes your employees feel
important and adequately prepared to do their jobs well, leading to higher job satisfaction, lower rates of absenteeism, and
increased retention rates.

• Smaller skills gap: Employee training programs help organizations bridge any skill gaps, strengthen weak links, and enable
internal promotion.

• Competitive edge: Empowering employees with the knowledge and skills they need helps your company remain competitive
in the fast-paced business environment.

• Adapt to change: Adaptability in the workplace is a must with digital transformation – and employee training helps support
and manage change for organizations introducing new processes and technologies
D. 4 Challenges to Creating a Successful Training Program

Here are some common employee training challenges faced by L&D teams while creating employee training program:

• Employee Buy-In: When introducing a new training program, it is crucial to gain employee buy-in to ensure everyone is on
board and completely aware of what is expected of them. Without the buy-in, the impact of your training is diluted, and it
might become an inconvenience for your employees.
• Accurately Measuring Success: L&D teams need to provide a quantitative assessment of how training programs are
impacting the organization. However, it is challenging and takes a lot of effort to figure out the metrics to use, incorporating
them into post-training assessments, following up, and adjusting future training based on the results.
• Remote and Hybrid Workforces: A rise in remote work and a geographically dispersed workforce has introduced new
challenges in employee training programs. With a geographically dispersed workforce, employee training is hard to manage
because of a lack of face-to-face communication, misunderstandings, cultural differences, time differences, etc.
• Balancing L&D Training with Day-to-Day Work: Maintaining a satisfactory work-life balance already takes a lot of time
and effort from your workforce. Having to spend spare time attending the training sessions makes them resist the training
altogether.
V. How to Create an Effective Training Program in 7 Steps
Now that you know all about the goals and challenges, let’s get to creating the employee training process:

1. Assess Your Training Needs

Assessing training needs identifies employees’ current level of competency, skill, or knowledge in different areas and compares that
competency level to the required competency standard established for their job roles. The difference between the current and required
competencies help determine employee training needs. Training assessments are often conducted after hiring, during performance reviews, for
performance improvement, for employee development plans, or during organizational changes.

Here are some steps to get you started on assessing the training needs of employees:

• Skill gap analysis: Identify the gap between the actual and desired knowledge and skills. A skill gap analysis results in a list of skills your
employees already have, need to improve, and need to develop. From there, you can fill in the skill gap using training programs to build a team
of skilled workers that meet your company’s needs.
• Figure out what employees know: Give employees a chance to show what they know (and identify any gaps) before you start designing your
training programs. This information can be collected via questionnaires, surveys, observing employees and examining their work, or conducting
formal assessments.
• Talk to your employees: Encourage open communication and feedback with your employees. Ask them if they are lacking any skillsets that
could help them do better at their jobs. This helps leaders decide on the right methods of employee training that will be the most effective for
each individual employee and learning type.
• Evaluate current training resources: Figure out what training resources are already in place and what needs fine-tuning (or scrapping
altogether)
2. Set Training Goals and Objectives

Employee training needs to have long and short-term measurable outcomes to evaluate their effectiveness. Training goals and objectives make
it easier to understand and measure the value training is bringing to your organization.

Employee training objectives define what learners will be able to do at the end of the training. Training goals are not only defined for
individuals but also for your company as a whole – how will the training impact the organization? What will it achieve for the business?

Here’s how to create effective, realistic, and measurable objectives for employee training:

• Make the purpose of your training program clear: Identify what you want to accomplish with this training – improve employee
performance, bridge a knowledge gap, teach new employee skills, etc. Whatever the case, make sure that the purpose of training is clear.

• Define expected training outcomes: Training outcomes are the measurable goals employees are expected to achieve at the end of
training. When writing down the expected training outcomes, be specific and leave nothing to interpretation.
• Consider different conditions, factors, and variables: Consider different parameters that might affect the design and delivery of your
training program. For instance, the availability of a qualified instructor or venue, your budget, training timelines, prerequisites such as
baseline knowledge of a subject or familiarity with a skill to join a course.

• Align training objectives with business goals: The fundamental goal of training is to produce business results. An effective and
relevant training program must align with business goals.

• Write SMART goals: The SMART format is the go-to standard when it comes to setting training goals:

 S – Specific: Training goals need to be specific and narrow.

 M – Measurable: Learning outcomes need to be measurable.
 A – Attainable: Training objectives are realistic given the required amount of time and resources.
 R – Relevant: Your training goals answer the “What’s in it for me?” question for learners.
 T – Time-bound: The goals need to have a deadline
3. Invest in Training Technology

Manually creating individual training programs that align with your employees’ training goals is time-consuming and inefficient—and if your
company has over 100 people, likely impossible. Organizations need to invest in online course authoring tools and employee training software
to create a relevant training program for modern learners:

• Digital Adoption Platform: A digital adoption platform (DAP) is an employee training solution that integrates with digital tools to
provide automated, personalized training in the flow of work. DAPs assign each learner a contextual task list containing interactive
walkthroughs and other in-app content based on the learner’s profile. Walkthroughs are a series of step-by-step prompts that show users
how to complete a certain process by guiding them through each step, showing them relevant training videos, or providing informative
articles. DAPs work hand-in-hand with learning management systems (LMSs) and eLearning software like xAPI and SCORM for you to
track learners’ progress and build more relevant content in the future.

• Learning Management System: LMS provides personalized learning paths for both mandatory and non-mandatory courses based on
that employee’s actions taken within the LMS. Corporate LMS solutions track what courses your employees commonly access and
complete within the LMS database, as well as suggest similar courses that the employee might be interested in. It’s a completely
automated process that requires little time investment from your L&D team outside of the initial setup and content creation.
4. Choose the Employee Training Method

To find the employee training method that works best for your workforce, L&D teams need to understand the different employee learning
styles of their workforce and build personalized flows for different learning styles. There are also other factors as well that influence the
choice of your training delivery method. For instance, for smaller companies in-person trainings are more cost effective, whereas larger
enterprises or distributed companies might benefit from online self-paced training that require less coordination. Some of the employee
training methods are:

• eLearning: enables employees to learn in the comfort of their homes, according to their individual learning styles and needs.
• On-the-Job Training: enables active participation for employees by allowing them to learn in the flow of work.
• Instructor-Led training: This face-to-face learning style mimics physical classroom spaces with an instructor present to lead the
training session.
• Coaching: involves an experienced professional – a supervisor, mentor, or veteran employee – who mentors or coaches an employee on
specific job tasks and responsibilities.
• Simulation Training: lays out different scenarios that allow employees to practice tasks that mimic the actual work of their specific
job’s role.
• Video Training: engages employees and delivers sophisticated learning experiences at a lower cost than traditional training.
5. Develop Training Materials

While developing your training content, start with a detailed outline to make the writing process easier and organize your information in a way
that best serves your trainees. There are many ways to organize training materials, but a job or task-based system works the best. For example,
a process documentation on a sales process can be organized as:

Once you have your training goals, a plan for delivery, and a detailed outline, you can start creating your training content. A variety of training
materials should be created using different tools such as:

Word, Excel, and PDF documents to create handouts for employees

Powerpoint decks for in-class projections
Flip-charts, posters, transparencies, and/or computer-generated graphics to present visual materials
eLearning SCORM authoring tools to create computer-based eLearning modules
While designing training materials or modules, focus on the learning needs of the employees. A few tips for designing your training materials
are:
• Develop your materials in a way that puts employees in control of their learning
• Include interactive elements to engage employees
• Invite feedback throughout the training
• Approach each topic chronologically
• Present information in an immersive, emotive and engaging way
• Make conversational videos for video training
• Avoid being too wordy while creating a written training manual
6. Implement Your Employee Training Program

The implementation phase is where your training program comes to life. Program implementation needs to consider employee engagement
and learning KPI goals, as well as should plan the scheduling of training activities and other related resources such as providing equipment
and training material, creating assessments, etc.

Then you’re ready to launch the training program and can begin to be promoted across your organization. The progress of individual
participants should be monitored during training to ensure the effectiveness of the program and prevent any hiccups or failures.
7. Evaluate and Monitor Your Employee Training Program

In the end, the entire training program is evaluated to determine if it was successful and met the objectives. Feedback is obtained from all
stakeholders to determine training effectiveness and knowledge or skill acquisition. Consider using the following metrics to measure your
training effectiveness:

• Employee feedback: Post-training employee feedback helps determine whether or not the training helped, learned new things, what
their overall opinions or suggestions are, and more. Employee feedback can be conducted via interviews or anonymous online surveys.
• Knowledge gained from training: Tests, quizzes or demonstrations help evaluate the learnings gained by employees after the training
sessions.
• Post-training job proficiency: Observe your employees to figure out whether or not they’re using the new knowledge in their day-to-
day tasks.
• Data analytics: Use your training software’s data analytics dashboard to determine how your employees are interacting with your
courses. With a DAP’s analytics dashboard, for example, you can track which courses your employees are interacting with, how many
times they interacted with the course, the average course completion rate, and where employees are dropping off. Based on those
numbers, you can infer which courses are most effective or ineffective, useful, interesting, or confusing.
• Quantifiable business results: After a month or a quarter, analyze your training results by determining whether the training
corresponds with a rise in revenue, a decrease in costs, changes in employee productivity, etc.
If You’re Wondering Where to Start…
If you’re confused about where to start, there is one simple step you can take right now – adopt a Digital Adoption Platform. A digital
adoption platform enables learning via interactive walkthroughs, videos, and self-help menus and allows you to train employees on
demand while providing insights to measure training effectiveness.

Whatfix DAP enables you to create scalable employee training flows built directly into your website or enterprise applications –
allowing employees to learn in the flow of work. It provides segmented, contextual training and development self-help resources to
employees in the moment of need, with analytics to measure and improve your training processes.
VI. 5 Ways to Evaluate Training Success (PROGRAM)

“Our training program was a success!” Was it though? How do you know?

Most of my clients ask participants how much they liked the program. If the participants say they liked it, many learning professionals claim the
training a success.

Sure, we want participants to enjoy the learning experience, but that’s not our goal. Saying you liked the course is pretty imprecise – maybe you liked
the jokes the facilitator told, and the lunch served by catering. And those evaluations can’t measure achievement of learning objectives, which are
about behavior. Changing performance is a better indicator of success.

More often than not, learning professionals perceive that it’s too difficult to measure performance change. It really isn’t, though. Here is a range of
metrics used by the business leaders I’ve worked with.
1. Satisfaction: This is the “did you like it?” measurement. It gives us information on the participants’ impression of the program. Typically we use
end-of-session surveys about the quality of materials, program delivery, and the overall experience. In many cases, this is where evaluation ends.
However, to truly define success, you have to go further.

2. Learning: This gauges the extent to which participants believe the program achieved its objectives, and how well reaching those objectives met
their development needs. Often we ask participants to report what they learned, but sometimes we can use knowledge checks or an end-of-session
test.

3. Application: This measures how well participants apply what they learned to their jobs. In most cases, I recommend asking participants, at the end
of the program, what they will apply on the job. Then, follow up 60 to 90 days later and assess what they actually applied. I also recommend that
supervisors rate participants’ application.

4. Performance: This is an assessment of changes in job performance. The evaluation typically targets key business indicators like quality of work,
customer satisfaction, speed-to-market, sales, etc. Ideally, we would measure the extent to which a participant’s new skills impact business results.
Again, I recommend an end-of-course survey asking participants to predict how their new skills will change their performance. Then follow up 60 to
90 days later and measure how performance actually changed and how those changes affected business metrics. Again, supervisor ratings are
important as well.

5. Recommendation: This is somewhat related to satisfaction. This evaluation asks participants whether they would recommend the program to
someone else. It’s a good measurement of perceived value of the program.
This allows you to compare the performance of individual programs or courses. It’s also helpful to measure the same program over time.
These broad views of your curricula help you pinpoint problems and focus improvement efforts.

Gathering evaluation data doesn’t have to be difficult. The metrics are straightforward and easy for business leaders to understand. Focusing
on these five measures will help you build and maintain strong learning programs that deliver business value. And it will help you demonstrate
training success to your stakeholders