Employee Training Essentials

EMPLOYEE TRAINING ESSENTIALS

For Small and Micro Businesses

Tammy Bjelland Founder & President, Learning in Bloom

www.learninginbloom.com

—Tony Bingham, president & CEO of the Association for Talent Development (ATD), formerly American Society for Training & Development (ASTD)

“Talent development means building the knowledge, skills, and abilities of others and helping them develop and achieve their potential so that the organizations

they work for can succeed and grow.”

How can small businesses, that don’t have a Talent/Learning Development (Training) Department, effectively and efficiently

train their employees? How can they develop, implement, and maintain a company-wide talent development

program?

THE ESSENTIAL QUESTION

1. Communicate the importance of effective training

2. Identify a position for which you want to train

3. Write training objectives for a task 4. Outline your training plan for one

objectives 5. Plan next steps to implement training

OBJECTIVES

What is the cost of ineffective training?

Lack of engagement

Mistakes!

Lost time & productivity

Loss of employees

Data from Center for American Progress

WHAT POSITION(S) DO YOU NEED TO TRAIN FOR?

Write at least one position that you need to train for, either now or in the future

Now, write a list of tasks that you want someone in

that position to do

Now, choose ONE task

WORK BACKWARDS•From that ONE task, create a list of skills or other things that they need to know or do to accomplish that task

•What do they need to KNOW? •What do they need to DO? •HOW do they need to do it?

This is your list of objectives!

OBJECTIVES•Measurable •Clear

…these objectives drive your training!

CONTENT • Use what you already have! • Make a list of all the tasks and objectives

you need to train on • Dedicate one week to documenting

those tasks: through lists, video, audio, screencast, screenshots, etc. (resource list comes a little later in the presentation)

FORMAT & DELIVERY OPTIONS

• Employee manual • Standard Operating

Procedures (SOP) • Posters • Checklists

DOCUMENTS (PAPER OR ELECTRONIC)

• Presentations • Storytelling • Discussions • Role-playing • Reports • Demonstrations • Collaborations • Q&A

INSTRUCTOR-LED TRAINING

• Text • Graphics • Screenshots • Audio • Video • Screencasts • Animations • Virtual reality

COMPUTER BASED TRAINING

• Teleconferencing or videoconferencing

• Webinars • Collaborative projects • Group communication

• Email • Messaging

ONLINE

• Cross-training • Demonstrations • Coaching • Drills

HANDS-ON TRAINING

ASSESSMENT & FEEDBACK

How will you (and the employee) determine whether or not they’ve accomplished the objective? How

will you communicate areas of strength and opportunities for

improvement?

EXAMPLE ASSESSMENTS • Customer service: Write an email

template responding to a customer who would like a refund

• Sales: Sales call simulation • IT: Screencast of troubleshooting

steps • Self assessment • Check for understanding (quiz)

FEEDBACK • Document it! •Include areas of strength and opportunities for improvement • Be clear and consistent • Compare/contrast assessment with examples of what you expect • Create forms that you can use and reuse

TOOLS TO USE

COLLABORATION & SHARING

•Google Drive •Microsoft One Drive •Dropbox

PROCESS DOCUMENTATION

•SweetProcess •Wrike •SnagIt •Jing •Screenflow

COMMUNICATION & PROJECT MANAGEMENT

• Wrike • Slack

ASSESSMENT & FEEDBACK

• Typeform • Jotform • Google Forms

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Objective 1: Categorize content of past social media posts

1. Content: Sample social media posts 2. Format: Screenshots 3. Delivery: Computer-Based, online (using Versal)

4. Assessment: Create a list of topic categories in Google Sheets

5. Feedback: Add comments to Google Sheets

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