Learning & Development

4 Steps to Take When Outlining Your Training Priorities

Research indicates that ineffective training strategies can cost organizations up to $13.5 million per year per 1,000 employees. What’s more, research also shows that employees want more training opportunities from their employers and that workplace training keeps employees engaged and more productive at work while also retaining them for longer periods of time.steps
If you want your training strategy to work for you, your organization, and its employees this year, here are four steps you’ll need to take to better outline your training priorities first.

1. Conduct an Audit

Before determining and adding to your training and L&D priorities, you’ll first want to conduct an audit. Audit your:

  • Training programs’ content and materials
  • Supplemental learning content and resources
  • Learners’ profiles and assessments
  • Learning technologies and analytics

You’ll want to scan through your existing learning content and technologies to see what’s out of date and what won’t yield a sustainable return on investment for your department or entire organization moving forward.
This way, you’ll know where to start first. And you’ll also want to make sure learners are regularly engaging with your learning content and programs, that they’re demonstrating that real learning is taking place on a routine basis via content and programs they have access to, and that you have mobile and cloud learning options in place.
(Read “How to Implement Mobile Learning Across Your Organization” and “Why It’s Important to Have a Cloud-Based LMS” for more details.)
Most importantly, you must make sure to match each of your learning and training priorities to your organization’s goals (i.e., you could link your emotional intelligence training to your organization’s mission to be more collaborative so that it can boost partnerships and revenue).

2. Consider Your Competition

When outlining your training priorities, consider what technologies, strategies, programs, etc., your direct competitors are implementing or already using for their employees.
Especially pay attention to those training initiatives that allow your competitors to be more efficient and that consistently yield higher returns, more engaged and properly upskilled employees, and higher employee and customer retention rates. You’ll want to prioritize how you can build training strategies and initiatives that will allow you to outpace them.

3. Be Prepared to Implement and Manage Change

With the rapid and ever-evolving rate of technological innovation, change in today’s modern workforce is not an anomaly but a certainty, so make it a top priority to handle change.
Be prepared to implement new systems, programs, technologies, strategies, policies, etc., in order to implement your training priorities and strategies. And then be prepared to manage the changes you make.
For more insight, read “Best Practices: Training Your Employees to Accept and Manage Change” Part 1 and Part 2.

4. Collect and Analyze Data

To make sure you’re constantly focusing on the right training priorities at the right time throughout the year, collect and analyze learner data and data about your training programs, strategies, and initiatives on a rolling basis.
Such data will tell you when you need to update a program or certain training materials and so much more—and will ultimately ensure that you’re always focusing on the right training priorities for your learners and for your entire organization.
Be sure to follow the four steps above when outlining your training priorities for this year and years to come.

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