Training Methods to Increase Productivity

As of lately the work environment has changed quite a bit since the pandemic started. Many of us are working from home full time or telecommuting and working in the office. How are we as employees being encouraged within our personal development of soft and hard skills? Throughout the years, organizations and companies have turned towards training to encourage an increase in productivity and expertise in your field of work.

The goal of training is to improve performance and increase these following attributes in employees: Self Awareness, Knowledge, Skill and Motivation.

Five types of training are Basic skills, Technical skills and Interpersonal skills. Training’s effectiveness have been stated to help with staying on task, multitasking and organizational maneuvering.

Steps on how to identify your organizational needs for trainings:

a. establishing goals and objective,

b. choosing and preparing the best training method,

c. training, motivating the employee,

d. conducting training and evaluating results.

How to determine the organizational training needs:

Conduct needs assessment and determine which employees need training. Also decide what the content of the training should be. Trying to find descripency between actual vs. ideal performance and discrepancy between the norm vs the minimum requirements. What ever desired state that differs from a norm, is your expected state and your need.

A needs assessment has levels:

Organization level - The goals and values of the organization.

Task/job level - concerned with the task of the job or KSAO’s ( knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics)

Person level - how well the employee is able to do job task. If applicant doesn’t have necessary KSAO they may need to be trained.

If a training program is in place here are key questions that need to be asked when doing assessment:

a. What are we trying to accomplish?

b. Why do we think there is a need for the training program?

c. Is there an actual need of the training program?

d. Is the idea for the training program practical?

e. Is the idea for the trainings practical?

f. Will people participate?

g. Are the barriers too big?

h. Do we have the expertise; are we able to find people for trainings?

i. Do we have the funding?

“The best training program will need to be flexible, adapted to trainees needs and content.”

If you don’t have a training program in place, here is a way to develop a training program:

Set goals and objectives. Determine the following details:

What the learners are expected to do.

The conditions their expected to do it.

The level in which they are expected to do it.

Goals should be concrete and attainable.

Accomplishments within training time frame.

Define the criterion. This will assist with understanding how achievements of the objectives could be assessed. For example will it be important to include a statement of what the trainer should know? Or the criteria that serves as a basis of the design of training, and also as the standard against which the training is evaluated?

What trainings is your organization trying to give?:

Knowledge - is it general or expert knowledge ; is it narrow or broad topic

Skill - whats the level of proficiency we are trying to get at

Motivation - how much motivation do we need employees to have

Choose the best training method:

a. Modeling - a person, film, computer simulation anything you watch and imitate, can model effective and ineffective.

b. Mentoring - experienced person, career guidance. Better performance, less turnover, less work family conflict, can help mentor and mentee

c. Classroom Training - Lecture, case study.

d. Distance Learning -  books, videos, interactive videos, programmed instruction.

Three motivating things that will encourage participation:

Offering trainings that’s within the parameters of work hours adds incentive for involvement with training that won’t have interference with day to day work load or meetings.

“Provide incentives, for example offer lunch, pay the employee.”

As referenced, it’s relative to have an incentive to offer to employees as a method of encouragement for constructive participation. Possibilities for growth will motivate the candidate to take part in a training that is beneficial to career advancement.

“If you perform well, this can help you get promoted, better pay, etc.”

Three questions about training to determine if it has positively impacted the agency:

Factors of the Training

an influence that contributes to the results or outcome, was it indeed beneficial or the turn out was not as expected? Did it live up to the expectation? Was it worth the encumbering of funds from a portion of your budget?

The Job Environment

has this influenced the conditions of the office culture? Did your staff identify a connection to the material in an impactful way?

Can they actually use the Training

did your staff benefit? Was it worth their while to recommend as a good source within their profession? Did they feel a sense of appreciation to have participated?