While it is often overlooked, your company’s employee development program is a valuable part of your overall strategic plan. According to LinkedIn, companies that offer all-inclusive development programs typically have a significantly higher income-per-employee rate than employers with less comprehensive programs, clocking in at a 218% advantage. These same companies also have a 24% advantage in profit margin, which means that training correlates with higher employee satisfaction and better overall performance.
Investing in your company’s employee training programs can help to retain employees while also providing the chance to upskill your existing employees, making them more effective workers. When your employees feel that they are supported as they try to engage in professional development, they are more likely to remain loyal to your company, especially if they feel there is room for advancement.
For employers, upgrading your employees’ skills can directly impact your bottom line. Training existing employees is more cost-effective than hiring new employees. Broadening and enhancing worker skills gives you the flexibility to reassign roles and responsibilities in response to shifts in the market, including extreme events like the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why it is important to always be on the lookout for ways to improve your company’s employee development program.
How to Increase the Effectiveness of Your Employee Training Programs
When it comes to improving your employee development program, a good first step is to invest in a skills testing program. eSkill has a vast library of Skills Tests, which are customizable to your specific goals. With a Skills Assessment Test, you can identify where your employees are strongest and which skills may need improvement. They can also help to identify any knowledge gaps in your company, allowing you to quickly address any shortfalls.
The information generated from this testing can help you tailor employee development programs to each individual, making sure that you do not spend valuable time and capital in areas where an employee might already be skilled. Kathy Gurchiek, writing for SHRM, believes that individualized learning is one of the main trends we are likely to see over the next few years, which not only allows for targeted remediation but also customized development for specialized career tracks.
Skills testing can help you to build out your employee development program in very interesting ways. Not only does it increase the efficiency of your programs, allowing you to avoid repetition and unnecessary training, but it can also help you to quantify learner outcomes. When you begin with a Skills Assessment Test, you create a baseline measurement for your workers, both individually and as a group. You can then have your employees take the test again after training, allowing you to measure how effective it was.
Testing also allows you to expedite changes to your workplace, from implementing new policies or procedures to deploying new software or equipment. While many skills will be transferable, you can identify any shortcomings early in the adoption process, limiting disruptions caused by incomplete or incorrect implementation.
Employee Training in a Post-COVID-19 World
The recent pandemic threw the world into disarray, forcing companies to adapt to new styles of working almost overnight. As one might expect, there were certainly hiccups, and with the accompanying economic downturn, companies were forced to make difficult decisions that included workforce reduction and role reassignments.
For many companies, one of the first areas to see temporary cuts was employee development, usually due to financial constraints and technological limitations. While the world shifted to a remote-based workforce, there was no time or money to transition development programs to a similar format.
However, as we continue to recover, we can start to look forward to the kind of employee training we should be focusing on in a post-pandemic world. In “Human Resource Executive,” Lee-Anne Vallee provides suggestions for the future of learning and development programs. One common theme through all of her points, though, is the need for companies to enhance their agility and flexibility.
In addition to embracing digital technology, Vallee points to building dynamic skills in your workforce as a key way to build a flexible, adaptable organization. Rather than lasering in on specific, seemingly high-yield skills, she suggests highlighting adjacent skills or skills that complement primary skills. This would allow your workforce to be highly flexible and able to adjust to changes in your organization that might require them to take on new roles.
Here, too, skills testing makes your job easier. Not only will eSkill provide you with a picture of your staff’s current skill levels, but it can also help you to identify areas where you may be lacking employees with key skills. You may find people who might have an aptitude for areas beyond the scope of their current job, which could make them ideal candidates for future promotion. It can even provide you with pathways for developing the skills that might make your workforce into more agile, adaptable employees that are capable of additional responsibilities.
Interested in deploying skills tests to make your employee training programs more effective?
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