The success of an organization’s Training and Development (T&D) activities depends on two-way engagement. While trainers might have their own objectives to accomplish through conducting training sessions, the intended trainee employees would have their own expectations from the training they are imparted. This article serves as a guide to ensure that your training programs meet the expectations that your employees would have:
Personalized Learning Experience
Every individual trainee would have a different learning speed and style. As such, standardized training imparted in a classroom might not be able to get all trainees to participate with active interest or even optimize the learning effectiveness. Different employees would have different strengths and weaknesses with regard to skills, and may want to address them differently by focusing more on their areas of weakness. As such, it is essential that companies enable employees to have a learning example tailored to suit their individual personality and requirements.
Relevance of Training to Work
Employees would be more interested in a training session if it is highlighted at the onset how learning something new through the session would ease their everyday tasks. Therefore, learning modules should be designed with a focus on the applicability of the training content to the intended trainees’ current and/or future job responsibilities.
Easy Accessibility
While the COVID-19 pandemic might have led most of the workforce to have to operate from their homes, even before the pandemic, the trend of cross-geography teams was on the rise. Thus, employees which operate from remote locations would expect that they receive the same training experience that in-house employees would. Moreover, employees would expect to be able to undertake training at a time and place of their convenience – maybe from office, or home, or while commuting, or while on a holiday.
Ease of Raising Queries and providing feedback
During the course of taking training sessions, it is natural that an employee might have some doubts regarding the content. Moreover, employees might also want to share feedback regarding different training modules that they undertake. It is essential that companies provide an easy communication channel between trainees and trainers, so as to facilitate ease of doubt resolution.
Knowing how Training would contribute to Professional Growth
One of the key aspects that would ensure that employees are motivated to participate in training sessions is knowing how the training would help employees to grow professionally. Therefore, it is essential that this is communicated to the intended trainee at the onset of every training session. Also, companies might allow employees the option to decide which roles they could seek to move into in future, and accordingly assign respective pre-requisite training modules to clear.
The above five points highlight natural expectations that employees would have from a company’s training programs. In ensuring that the same are met, the use of a Learning Management System (LMS) goes a long way. An LMS such as GyrusAim would enable a company to meet all the above expectations. By facilitating blended learning, the LMS enables trainees to participate in live virtual Instructor-Led Training sessions remotely and also take online module training modules over the convenience of a device they prefer (laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc.). Also, trainers and trainees may communicate with each other to discuss various doubts and get them resolved, while the gamified learning experience contributes to making learning a fun exercise to be a part of.