Adding to yesterday’s post, here are six additional tips and best practices you’ll want to consider executing when training and developing your L&D team.
1. Give Assessments and Feedback
Periodically assess your L&D team so you know where each employee’s strengths and weaknesses are, to see when you might have to create a refresher course or training, and to see who’s ready to acquire new expertise or skills.
You’ll also want to provide your L&D team members with feedback on their performance, as well as feedback for courses they might be developing, managing, instructing, and so on. This will ensure that they’re always producing the best learning content and instruction possible for the rest of your organization.
2. Coach L&D Staff and Trainers
When L&D team members need guidance or hit a roadblock in their roles or everyday work, be available to help them figure out the best way forward. Offer helpful resources and guidance when they need them.
Ultimately, if they don’t have resources to rely on when they need them, as well as your guidance, it will be very challenging (if not impossible) for them to be able to be a resource or offer resources to those other employees who are relying on them for support and guidance.
3. Offer Hands-On and Interactive Opportunities
Whenever possible, provide your L&D staff with hands-on opportunities to learn new things. For instance, if they haven’t instructed a training class before, you could allow them to instruct a class while you shadow them and offer them feedback as they interact with learners.
And you could allow them to manage a discussion board with questions learners post while you monitor their approach. Or, you could review course content they’ve created before they publish it live for the first time, and so on.
4. Solicit Learner Feedback from Trainees and Managers
One way to see where your L&D staff need more training or support is to solicit feedback from learners who have worked with them or managers who oversee those learners who have worked with them.
With this feedback, you’ll be able to see where your L&D staff need to improve, as well as what you can do to support them in their work. For instance, they might need better software to work with or more team members to help them field learner questions and concerns, etc.
5. Provide Refresher Trainings and Ample Resources
Even the most experienced L&D professionals will need reliable resources to consult while they work. So, make sure your staff have ample resources available to them, such as handbooks, policy documents, etc. And make sure they have on-demand refresher training courses they can complete when they need to refresh their skills and expertise in a certain area.
6. Encourage Social Learning
Encourage your L&D staff to share their own best practices and tips with one another on a rolling basis via social learning platforms and avenues. This will ensure your team is collaborative and cooperative and that common mistakes are quickly rectified across your department before they become an organizational concern while L&D efficiencies are maximized.
Keep the tips and best practices above and in yesterday’s post in mind as you work to train and develop your L&D team.