Training

Why Employee Training Programs?

By Himanshu Juneja

Employee trainings are essential to enhance employees 'capabilities and also make them feel comfortable at the workplace. Trainings help an individual to deliver his/her level best by acquiring additional set of skills and knowledge in their respective domains. Employee trainings encourage employees to think out of the box and find innovative solutions to their problems. Same skills and knowledge can't be applied everywhere. Every problem can't be dealt with in a similar way. Remember change is something which is inevitable. Technology becomes obsolete with time and it is essential for individuals to upgrade their existing knowledge and skills to stand apart from the rest and outshine fellow workers. It is essential for employees to brush on their existing knowledge and keep themselves abreast with the latest developments.

Employee training programs play an imperative role in extracting the best out of employees and enable them to put their best foot forward. Specific training programs help employees to learn new skills which he/she has not learnt before but would help him/her not only in current assignments but also future roles. Training programs help individuals to understand their worth and capabilities and where all they need improvement to survive the fierce competition.

An individual does not become a manager or a vice president of an organization in one day. There is no magic wand which will make you a part of the top management in a day. Not everyone can lead a team and not everyone can become a manager. You need to have some special skills and qualities which make you different from others. Additional skills and qualities come from training. Believe me, no one on this earth is born perfect, perfection comes through training. It is not necessary that an individual needs to know everything on the first day of his/her job. Do not feel embarrassed if you do not know a particular skill or are unable to perform a particular task. Remember, there is no end to learning. Training helps employees to keep pace with the changing times and makes them well-equipped to face unforeseen situations and adverse conditions. In layman's language, training prepares you for future.

Employee trainings enable individuals to accept challenges with a smile. Everyone needs correct feedback, guidance and handholding at some point in his career. Trainings make an employee feel confident and allow him to handle additional responsibilities and even lead teams.

Trainings also reduce the organization's cost involved in recruiting new talents. There is no need to hire new people if you train your existing workforce. Trainings make employees self dependent and also strengthen the relationship among employees and superiors. Individuals feel motivated as trainings provide them an opportunity to open up and discuss their problems on a common platform. You do not need to call training managers from outside every time. Superiors can train their team members along with their current responsibilities. Sit with your subordinates, suggest them new courses which would help them acquire new learnings, suggest ways of improvement and so on. Trainings play an essential role in honing employee's skills and make him a mature professional. Suitably designed training programs give you an extra edge over your colleagues and help you excel professionally in very short span of time.

How to Align Your Training Initiatives With Organizational Strategy

By Ravinder Tulsiani

What is the first thing that comes to your head when you hear people use the term 'corporate culture'? Most people describe it basically as the way 'things get done around here'. This is not exactly far from the truth. But there is a whole lot more that goes towards influencing or determining behaviour in the workplace. In other words, this definition barely scratches the surface.

Corporate culture becomes a focal point for attention during organizational transition periods. It becomes apparent during takeovers, mergers or alliances. It becomes crucial during period for organizations to embark on training initiatives to redefine their strategies and chart new courses of change.

It is a period where pre-existing culture becomes irrelevant and an impediment to progress. It becomes imperative to fashion out procedures that would boost morale and ward off cultural conflict. It is important to find a means of aligning training initiatives with organizational thrusts for success and increased output. If you do not do this, then corporate harmony would remain elusive.

Sustainability for the future is built on training programs that tilt towards leadership and talent. These programs harp on the diversity of strength but still find a local means of pooling resources together that meet urgent needs without fulfilling unnecessary protocol. This starts from the board or management team that ensures it trickles down to the people that work under them. They are the ones that will encourage training and provide the required drive or support.

A lack of alignment with the management and the rest of the workforce is the reason why businesses do not make needed impact. It is in this vein that it is safe to assert that alignment from the leadership to the initiative team and spreading it down to the organization is critical to success.

The intent must be established and understood before training can follow. If this is not done, teams would be unable to come under one cause and move forward. Once an agreement is reached these teams must find a means to make the strategy work via effective training. This is what commits them to the cause and ensures that they dedicate their energy towards its success.

Strategy is the heartbeat of any business. If you do not strategize properly, your training initiatives would suffer. It does not matter how ingenious it might be or how much time it took to ponder over it. So when next you come up with a strategy and want to come up with training sessions that can drum It into the mind's eye of your workforce, make certain that it meets organization objectives. In addition, make sure it is people-friendly and readily adapts to change and rewards learning as a mandatory ingredient for expansion.

Staffing The Training Department For Success

By James K Hopkins

Employers are always trying to find the best talent for the least amount of money. It is a game played in nearly every function in every company and probably won't soon disappear. With the current high numbers of unemployed, the advantage is with the employer today.

However, what happens when we settle for less talent just to save money? The perils of this choice when it comes to staffing the training department are often not realized until much later, when it is too late to reverse the losses.

Many times the training manager is a promoted trainer, or human resources specialist that wants to manage training. They are a really nice person, and they get along well with others, but they simply have zero experience with adult learning beyond the basics, let alone are strategic. Because they have what I call "the right heart" they accept the role and struggle like hell trying to do the job. They make numerous mistakes and take twice as long to get every project done.

The company needs to weigh their options when hiring inexperienced people to manage training. Even if you spend half the salary, if it takes twice as long to achieve results you have not saved a dime, and in fact because it took longer to achieve your goals more than just training is behind the curve.

When companies decide to "build out" the training function, which means they want to make learning official now, they often begin with a role called a Corporate Trainer. They define the role as a jack of all trades, that in addition to managing all training programs, they should be able to design new programs, facilitate all the different types of content, and maybe handle a systems conversion in their spare time.

While the task of finding this wonder-person will be daunting, it is not the challenge most companies are realizing. Finding someone who can do these tasks is one thing, but expecting them to all be done in the same time period is unrealistic.

I know this is old school, but let's assume some basic math. 1 person times 40 hours a week is still 40 hours a week. Only so much can get done in a week by one person. As I have often said to senior managers, I can get everything done you want in the time allowed as long as I have the people to get it done.

When it comes to staffing a training department, so much depends on what is on the to do list, and how quickly things need to get done. Large training organizations can afford to hire subject matter experts and train them to be trainers, but smaller organizations need the competencies in place. When you are just beginning your training department the laundry list of projects is pretty long, and having experience may cost you in the short-term, but quicker results pays off in the end.

Now many experienced training leaders are expressing frustration over salaries that are half of what they were 5 years ago. Not many people want to earn 50% of what they did 5 years ago, especially when they are 5 years more experienced today. Logic would dictate that experience is worth more money, and yet a lot of unemployed people competing for these jobs and are willing to settle for any salary.

Companies that feel they found a bargain, need to realize that the employee is not likely to stay past a better offer from another company. Retention is often difficult with these employees, and it would have been a more strategic move to pay them what they are worth from the beginning. People often work as hard as they feel they are being compensated, so was saving a few dollars really a bargain?

Lastly, staffing training doesn't always mean full-time employees. When you have projects that are non recurring, hire a contractor. There are plenty of talented designers, trainers and consultants that can complete a project for a flat fee. In, out, and you can check another project off the list.

The Importance of Choosing a Reputable Training Provider

By Matt D Lambourne

Having high standards of training for new staff is an incredibly important part of any successful business. The skills that are developed at this point should ensure that all new recruits can be incorporated seamlessly into the relevant department or area and a key factor in this process is the training provider used. With the wide range of institutions competing to offer this type of service selecting the best source is not an easy task. It is important to have a clear set of criteria in place to help pick the best one.

Reputation needs to be checked

Just because a company has been doing this for forty years does not mean that they are the best choice. They may be in decline and have poor current attainment standards for the trainees that they manage. Before committing to a contract a thorough background investigation of their latest history will give a precise indication of how well they are performing for their clients. A check on their most recent Ofsted report, or in the performance league tables, will give some perspective on the state of their existing capabilities.

Is their experience relevant?

It may seem like a fairly obvious question but some training providers will tender for jobs even though they have very little experience in that sector. This will result in a situation where those tasked with delivering the training will actually be trying to learn as they go. It is worth checking to see what specific programmes they have run and how successful they have been. A good provider should be able to offer some relevant evidence.

Working as part of the business

A training provider that has experience and capability should be able to assimilate with operations so that their trainees are able to work harmoniously in that area. This will include a combination of providing personnel that have a comprehensive understanding of working requirements and a programme of study that integrates with the predetermined working schedules. A good training operation should feel like a natural part of the business.

Learning how to grow

The learning experience as part of this process should not just stop at the trainee. The company should also be able to pick up pointers that will help improve operations. Feedback from the training provider can help to improve the flow of information, which in turn can make the working environment better for all employees.

How Do You Train Them AND Keep Them?

By James K Hopkins

What happens if we train them and they quit? What a waste of money!! And yet, what happens if we don't train them and they stay? The question is not whether to train our employees, that should be a given, but once they are skilled how do we keep them for a while so we get a little return on our investment?

Too many banks work without a strategic training plan, and without any practical concept of the many skills that need to be developed in a banker. Most banks have, if at all, a limited idea of a career ladder, and if they do, it rarely operates outside of a single division of the bank. Instead of a ladder, banks should be designing a scaffolding career path, one that allows a teller to one day become an HR consultant, a compliance officer, an auditor, a trainer, an IT guru, or a marketing specialist to name a few. This requires a set of skills be identified for each role, so that every employee can see what they need to learn to advance to the position of their choice.

For the generation entering the workforce today, learning is an ongoing exercise that can often be a trigger to seek employment else ware if they feel their learning opportunities have stopped. So we must have a rather extensive learning path in place that promotes relative job skills for both current and future roles. This path ties learning together with a wish to keep employees.

At the same time you are promoting an ongoing growth process, you must foster environments that allow people to get information as they need it. This can include the use of social media to collaborate with others, and open enrollment eLearning courses. On-the-job learning and assigned projects not only train new skills, but allow employees to stretch their abilities, test new knowledge and demonstrate their competencies.

Now while creating a career path might sound like the problem is solved, we need to make sure we have working environments that people want to work in longer than a few months. It is common knowledge that people join a company when they accept a job offer. Something about the opportunity meets the employee's need and they join the organization. Yet usually when an employee decides to leave an organization, it is because of an individual, usually their manager that makes them bolt.

One of the first things a company should look at before turnover becomes an issue is the condition of their manager's communication skills. Ask yourself, if you have managers that know how to manage performance, coach and motivate, or are we shooting ourselves in the foot with managers that do and say the wrong things, or are simply unaware of their current actions. Rather than finding out this information during an exit interview, use employee opinion surveys and/or 360 evaluations at the manager level. If they need training, get it done as soon as possible.

It is remarkable how some managers are so gifted in their management communication skills that they can keep top talent, even if the company is struggling. Employees stay with these managers even with great external job offers, and leave to follow these managers if they go to another company. Retaining these managers will retain other employees too.

Another area that is often overlooked is that of opportunity. So training is available, management is fantastic, but instead of a glass ceiling, it is a narrowing of the funnel. What happens when an employee is ready for the next step, but there are few real opportunities available? They quit and go to work for another bank.

Let's look at an example of a bank with 25 branches, with 25 Branch Managers and 25 Assistant Branch Managers. If you have a teller that is interested in becoming a Branch Manager someday, you can see from the top of this career path plenty of opportunity.

If you were advising this teller, you would design a path where they can move from being a teller to the next phase of learning New Accounts, and once they can perform both roles they advance to the next position and every branch has this role. However, if they want to seek the Assistant Manager role they must first become a teller supervisor. Yet only 5 branches are large enough to have this role. The funnel now narrows to a point that there are very few employees that can be advanced from teller to Branch Manager.

Training is only half of the equation. The other half involves a lot of different variables and individuals of which anyone of them can derail the retention train. Getting everyone engaged in learning and retention is a winning strategy.

Smart On Job Software Training

By Aimy T Thomas

How to achieve a successful career in IT field is an interesting question in the present IT trends and Industry in Kerala. The Key Stones behind the success in any Software on Job Training and IT industry lies in the Analytical Skills, Ability to Ask the Right Questions and Willingness to Learn, Openness to Risk-Taking, Collaborative Skills, Willingness to Work Hard and Put In Long Hours and Assertiveness. Analytical skills include the ability to think logically about an idea and to determine how to solve a problem. The process analytical skills in the Software on Job Training Program involve information gathering and analysis of various factors relating with the issue. The individual must be able to test a problem and come up with ideas to resolve them.

Another effective way in the Smart Software Career Training and On Job Software Training Opportunities Program in Kerala involves the process of problem-solving, learning from the mistakes and advancing. While problem solving an individual must dig for so many solutions and finally to derive a solution which can be implemented properly.

A True Innovation relies on willingness to strive for a unique goal even if you are uncertain about the 100% success of the project. A successful senior technical professional view themselves as risk managers in the process of attaining their goals. Collaboration is the ability to work with a group of people or within a team for attaining some specific goals. The steps behind the On Job Software Training Program in Kerala are building relationships, exchanging information, reaching at a decision or action and working in an environment to resolve a conflict.

The willingness to take increased responsibility and to work hard for long hours is the method of any On Job Software Training Program and a High-Tech Culture. This will help you to climb a ladder. In the IT/ Software world in Kerala, people are required to speaking up, promoting the goal, being ambitious and self confident. Being assertive to the facts is the keystone behind any Technical Innovation and Software on Job Training.

Why Should You Use Training Management Software?

By Jonathan Reynold

We can't deny the positive influence of technology in today's world. Critics might say that it has led to quite a lot of downsizing, but then again it has also given us valuable resources, without which we would not be able to manage a business. A crucial factor behind the success of any business is the efficiency of the workforce that has been employed to do various jobs. This is where training management systems step in to help out.

A training management system is not just to develop the overall business structure, but also to improve the work environment and hone the skills of the workforce, thereby leading to increased productivity in the long run. A management system will be largely effective when it comes to resource allocation in a company. For example, if 4 men are delegated to do a job that can be accomplished by 2, then it is a huge wastage of man power. A software will eliminate such possibilities right away.

Some are still skeptical about using such a software due to them being a bit expensive, but you have to look at the bigger picture ten years down the line. The training management software can be customized according to the requirements of your business and you can use it to train the present as well as new employees immediately after they join the organization. You can monitor their performance and store t reports for future use as well.

Management systems are also equipped with email correspondence, video conferencing and chat systems. This will help you to get in touch with them easily. No longer will there be any lack of communication or unwanted delays during crucial times! It is important that employees in your company have a clear idea about the business and what their responsibilities are exactly. Not knowing what their jobs are would mean a huge loss in terms of money, resources, and time. Break up company reports and provide analytical and logical observations to the people working for you. In this way, they will be motivated to further improve their performance. You can keep modifying the training programs as and when you wish.

Changing and viewing audit trails is an important part of training management. All necessary data about current, past, and future projects needs to be stored in detail because such information might be required anytime. A certain transparency will help you a lot in getting new clients and customers.

How Can Training Scheduling Software Modify Corporate Trainings

By Jonathan Reynold

Online training registration as a trend is on its way up globally with major corporate bodies in recent surveys already availing of or at least contemplating implementing this service within their organizational setup. If you are a part of the Human Resource team in a company that is yet to join the bandwagon, suggest to your Management to seriously consider the online training scheduling software. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications such as these have been making news for quite some time now; but most businesses are yet to explore them to their fullest potential. They are just trying them out on and off as a temporary solution to schedule their training programs.

This article tells you what an online training scheduling software solution can do to your corporate training programs.

Creates tailor-made online registration form:

The software application comprises of multiple form templates that are totally customizable. You can choose any of these templates to create your own company training registration form by incorporating your logo and tagline in it along with any other relevant graphics. You can also change the template font and format to make it look like a part of your official website. Once created, the software uploads it on the directed website that can be accessed by all your employees, managers, and instructors from anywhere in the world, 247.

Quicken turnaround time

With the training scheduling software you get more production time to market as it does not take long to create and publish professional looking, multiple online registration forms.

Automates communication

The comprehensive event mail and listing management solution of the training scheduling software makes all your communications fully automated. You can send out email invitations, RSVPs, and notifications in bulk numbers using this feature. You just need to schedule the mailers properly after you have sourced the email addresses from your employee database, and the rest is taken care of by this smart messaging tool.

Automates accounting

From collecting payments online, tracking real-time transactions to generating multiple printed receipts and invoices, the online payment management solution of the software application can do it all. So, you can speed up your accounts related operations. Security-wise too, this solution gives you full assurance. All the online payment gateways that it supports are PCI compliant and are based on the SSL technology.

Promotes training programs online

The solution helps you reach out to a wider target audience by promoting your training programs on various social networking sites. You just need to purchase a social media connector in addition to the software to carry out promotions in a more effective manner.

Fosters online learning

The training scheduling software makes learning an exciting affair for working professionals as it comes loaded with powerful productivity tools and audio-visual features. The excellent student-instructor management solution makes accessing and sharing of the session hand-outs so much more convenient.

Improves reporting

The software solution expedites the process of survey report generation post session by using the custom reporting tool. This helps you to judge your program's overall performance.

In other words, the training scheduling software streamlines a significant percentage of your administrative jobs thereby helping you to cut down on extra costs related to operations and work-head maintenance.