Skip to content
Train Your Employees

Best Ways to Train Your Employees

It’s not secret that regular employee training is imperative for the benefit of the company. During the current global situation, employee training has become even more valuable. It elevates the quality of work and ensures employee engagement. It also steers the employees away from the negative aspects of the pandemic and towards the growth of the company.

“The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.” Henry Ford

Mentoring

Mentoring is a great way for an understudy to learn. Whether from a boss or a colleague with significantly more experience, mentoring from a leader can allow an employee to learn much faster than traditional methods. It also gives them keen insight into the practical side of work as well as soft skills which are often overlooked. This is probably the most common way to train your employees.

Regular training

Another good way to keep employees engaged and regularly upskilled is to conduct mandatory in-house training. This could be through external resources or internal resources. These training sessions could be weekly or monthly. Not only does this ensure that the employees learn and grow at a regular pace but also makes sure they are up-to-date in their learning journey. This helps employees focus their conversations on the bigger picture such as goals, culture, achievements, etc. and increases their loyalty.

Regular webinars and other events

Additional to regular in-house training sessions, be on the lookout for webinars, seminars, and conferences for your employees to attend and organize an activity around it. Right now webinars are becoming more popular due to the pandemic while physical events like conferences have taken a back seat. Webinars and other events like these usually bring together the best in the business and are a great opportunity to learn. Set up an after-event activity session for the attendees to relay what they learned from the webinar or the conference. This not only aids in retaining what they learned, but it is also a good tool for those who didn’t attend to be able to learn.

Promotions

While this might sound counter intuitive, promoting an employee can rapidly increase their skill set. Promotions push employees to rise up to the job at hand. They experience feelings of responsibility towards their position as well as a need to prove they are worthy of it. It forces them to get out of their comfort zone and take on the challenge. This, of course, should be employed with those who show promise and are deserving of a promotion.

Changing teams

This might be dependent on the employees job role as well as the company’s size. Switching teams regularly allow employees to, again, get out of their comfort zone and rise up to the challenge. It also teaches them to work with other employees from multiple functions and maybe even take on slightly different roles every time their team has been changed. While this is not something to be done very often, it can be implemented on a regular basis.

Shadowing

Shadowing is described to be an informal way of learning about a certain job. It involves following and observing another employee without coming in their way or obstructing their workflow. The employee being shadowed could be from another department, so as to increase the understanding of other roles and facilitate cross functional or collaborative work. Or, it could be that the employee being shadowed is a senior with much experience to share. Through their day, the employee being shadowed might stop to explain, coach, or train the shadow. While this might be hard to do during the current situation, it can be achieved through small changes – marking both employees on emails, making sure all calls are video calls and ensuring both employees attend conference calls, setting a particular time in the day for the two employees to discuss and plan their day.

Cross learning

The best way to learn is to teach. Making employees teach each other allows them to learn better. This is not only beneficial for the employees who are learning something for the very first time, but this is also highly beneficial for the employees who take on the teaching role. This allows for each employee to learn about the job role of the other, which aids in better communication and better collaboration. It also increases the employee’s skill set, therefore increasing their versatility.

Making sure your employees are regularly trained, engaged in their job and role, and motivated is beneficial to them as well as the company. It keeps them focused on the company goals and keeps them alert and updated. These seven ways to engage and train your employees are great on their own, but can also be used in combination to enhance employee learning.

Summary

Q. Why is mentoring a great way to train employees?
A. Mentoring is a great way for an understudy to learn. It helps an employee learn much faster than traditional methods.

Q. Although it sounds counter intuitive, how do promotions help train employees?
A. Promotions push employees to rise up to meet the demands of the job. It forces them to get out of their comfort zone and take on the challenge.

UCLA PGPX
Back To Top