How to Design a Training Program For Your Company

This article identifies factors that hinder training programs. It discusses the skills that need to be taught, identifies who needs to be trained, and how training should be delivered. Additionally, this article reviews the documentation needed, how to implement the training program, and how to evaluate it.

Introduction

Keeping your company operating like a well-oiled machine is not an easy task, especially if your business has a high turnover rates, such as retail. In order to reduce the amount of time it takes to train your new employees to reach their full potenial, you need to develop a training system that is streamed-lined, effective, and efficient and  gives your new employees the skills needed to be a good employee without overburdening them with too much information. Finding the balance between too much and too little information is the key to designing the most effective training system for your company.

Step One: Determine what training is needed.

The first step in designing a training system for your company is to determine what kinds of training is needed. You will need to conduct an organizational analysis, a task analysis, and a person analysis. This three-tiered examination of your company’s training needs is required to identify: factors that will inhibit and aid training, to identify tasks that most employees will need to be trained in, and to identify employees that need to be trained.

Organizational Analysis

An organizational analysis is used to identify company factors that can negatively or positively impact the effectiveness of a training program. These factors include such things as money available for training programs, personpower analysis and planning resources, employee relations and attitudes, and company resources available for training purposes.
Examples:

1. The amount of money that is allocated to training will most likely be based on your company’s turnover rate, the difficulty of the jobs performed, and the amount of cash flow that your company has. Companies that have high employee turnover rates will probably not want to spend a lot of money on training because the employees usually don’t stay very long after the training period, and therefor it is a waste of money to invest a great deal of time and money on training certain employees.
2. Timing and personnel climate also can have a major impact on the effectiveness of a training program. For instance if a company has recently undergone a reorganization where many people were laid-off or displaced, and the company has not given its employees raises or promotions in several years, implementing a new training program may not be the best investment of company resources. Employees in this situation may harbor hostile feelings towards the company and management, and may not be receptive to new training. Instead, it would be a better investment to allocate money to improving employee relations and morale. 

Task Analysis

A task analysis is a process of identifying what skills and activities need to be taught. To generate a list of skills that employees need to learn you can conduct a job analysis. A job analysis is basically just an examination of a job and a listing of the "minimum" duties and skills that are required to successfully perform the job.
Example:
Job Title:

• Secretary

Job Skills:

• Typing 55-65 w.p.m.
• 10-key
• Word processing
• General computer skills
• Operation of office machines
• Phone skills
• Spread sheet skills
• Filing

As you can see, this list is very basic, and generalized to the skills required of just about any secretarial position. While the secretary that holds this position may perform many other tasks during the course of a week, these are the minimum skills that are needed to be able to "successfully" function in this position.
After identifying what tasks are involved in each job, the next step is to identify what tasks need training. If an employee already has an identified skill it is a waste of money to train them in that skill. If you identify a skill that does require additional training then you will need to formally identify it as a training objective in writing. This objective should identify (1) what the skill is, (2) how the trainee is to learn the skill, and (3) how proficient they need to be in the skill after the training process is completed. This documentation is needed to not only to let employees know what is expected of them, but also for personnel to maintain a common standard of training for all employees, and to protect you against lawsuits if you need to discipline or terminate an employee for not meeting the standards set out by the objectives.

Person Analysis

The final step in determining what training is needed is to conduct a person analysis. A person analysis is the identification of people in your company that need training. There are many ways that this identification process can be handled. First an examination of past and current performance appraisals can be made to identify employees that have areas that need improvements. Surveys can also be used to identify skills that the employees themselves think that they should have or that they need to have to perform their jobs more successfully. Interviewing employees can also be used to identify skills that are needed or desired by employees, as can skill and knowledge tests. The final way a person analysis can be conducted is to evaluate and review critical incident reports that have been filed in personnel. These incidents can pinpoint specific skills like customer service, assembly, etc. that specific employees or departments need to improve.

Step Two: Determine what training approach to use.

After you have identified who needs to be trained in what areas, you will need to determine what training methodology to use. Today there are many options managers and business owners can exercise to train their employees.
Seminars are a popular choice for large-scale training issues like professional standards updates and customer service issues. The benefits of this type of training methodology are: that they are usually given by an expert or organization that has extended knowledge of the area, they cover all the issues related to the issue is a short period of time, training materials are provided, and employees enjoy the fact that they get out of work to attend the seminar. The drawbacks of seminars are based on the time and money that they require. Employees are away from their jobs for one or more days to attend the seminar so the company must either do without their services during this time or pay for a temporary replacement. In addition to losing money for missed work, the company also has to pay for the seminar, travel, lodging, and meals while the employee is at the seminar. Another drawback to this type of training is that the material is presented to all employees at the same pace and in the same manner. This methodology does not take into consideration different learning styles or paces of individual employees, and therefore some employees may be bored while others may feel overwhelmed by the amount of material being presented to them in a short period of time.
In order to overcome pacing issues of training materials, programmed instruction can be used to deliver training materials. Programmed instruction is basically a hard copy format of training that is delivered either through: step-by-step booklets, latent ink booklets, or through computer-assisted instruction or computer-based training. All of these formats allow employees to progress at their own pace, and to go back over material as many times as needed. The drawback to this type of training methodology is the costs associated with purchasing training materials for every employee, especially if the company has a high turnover rate.
Examining case studies is another training methodology that can be used. Employee meetings can be held in which critical incidents are reviewed and alternative solutions or actions can be discussed. The advantages of this type of training methodology are that the issues addressed are specific to the company, and that employees can see the connection between a skill and its result easier in this situation than they can in a made up example printed in a training booklet. The main drawback to this methodology is that employees may feel singled out if the case study is about them. To overcome this, you may need to word the case study in a manner that gives the employee anonymity and that changes the situation enough so it can not be attributed to a specific employee.

Simulation is yet another training methodology that can be utilized. Simulation is basically just walking an employee through the motions of a skill in a controlled environment until they master the skill. The benefits of this training methodology are that they train employees to perform specific skills needed for their job, and simulations help train employees to respond appropriately to unexpected events in a controlled environment. The drawbacks to simulation are again based on money. In certain cases where simulating machines are needed, the cost can be extraordinarily high. Therefore simulation exercises that utilize these kinds of devises are often times limited to larger businesses or to companies that are located close to companies that lend out simulators.
Role-playing is an inexpensive training methodology that most companies can use. In this case employees act out scenes from their job in which they face challenges and situations that they normally will come across during the average day. For example, a person training to be a personnel assistant may be placed in a role playing training model where they sit at a desk in personnel and take mock-phone calls and walk-in inquiries. As they walk through these situations they respond in a way that they think is appropriate following written procedure models. They may answer questions, hand out personnel forms, etc. The benefits of this type of training are: (1) it is relatively inexpensive, and (2) it covers skills that are specific to the job in question. The drawbacks are that some employees may not feel comfortable in this situation, and they may not learn well under the pressure.
Apprentice training is another category of training methodologies that can be used to train employees. In this type of training programs new employees follow the lead of an experienced employee in order to learn new skills and to learn how to function properly in the job in question. This type of training is most commonly used in trade and craft industries, however, it can be used successfully in office situations as well. The benefits of this type of training program are that it gives the new employee a role model for proper work behavior and functioning, and it provides new employees with personal support during their training. The drawbacks to this type of training program are that it hinders the ability of the experienced employee to do their work, personality conflicts impact the quality of the training and results of the program, and the overall productivity of the company is hindered during the training process.

Step Three: Putting together your own training program.

Once you have identified the skills that need to be focused on, the employees that need training, and the methodologies that will be used, you need to put everything down in writing. Documentation is the key to protecting yourself against lawsuits relating to employee relations. The following training materials need to be cemented in writing.

1. Training objectives. Training objectives need to identify (1) the skill, (2) how training is to be conducted, and (3) what proficiency the employee needs to attain by the end of the training process.
2. Training materials. Training materials, depending on the nature of the skill, should be written out in a manner that is easy to understand and easy to follow. Step-by-step instructions should be written out for every job, no matter how insignificant it may seem to the employer. An instruction sheet should include (1) the skill title, (2) when it is to be performed, (3) who is to perform it, (4) what supplies are needed and where they can be found, (5) step-by-step instructions, and (6) what to do with the end product.
3. Evaluation materials. Evaluation materials are as important to a training program as the actual training materials. They will let you know how effective your training materials are and whether you need to adjust any of your methodologies. The evaluation materials that you need are: (1) evaluation procedures, (2) evaluation form for employees, (3) evaluation form for the employer (or manager), and (4) response (rebuttal) form.
4. Out-of-house materials. If your company utilizes outside sources for training you will need the following materials: (1) purchase order for educational services, (2) expense forms, (3) approval forms, (4) evaluation forms, and (5) any professional organization forms such as a CPE tracker.

Step Four: Training employees.

Now that you have all of your training materials in order you will need to let your employees know about the programs and their processes. They will need to know what your training objectives are, how their progress will be monitored, what training methodologies are available and which ones are required, and what paper work is required. Make sure that all of your employees understand all of these things and have them sign a statement attesting to this. Again this documentation will help to protect you from unfounded lawsuits.

Step Five: Evaluating your program.

After an employee has completed a training program you will want to have them fill out an evaluation form of the program that goes over how well the information was presented, if they found the training helpful, if there are any areas that need improvement, if there are any areas that seemed redundant or unnecessary, and if there are any other skills that they feel that they need to perform their jobs. You, or a manager, will also need to fill out an evaluation form on the employee’s progress and proficiency in the skill or skills that were focused on during the training program. Proficiency tests can be used to measure the employee’s abilities, or physical observation of the employees performance can be used. If you notice that there are still areas that need to be trained in, then you should make the changes to the training program as soon as possible so that the next trainee will get ALL of the training that they need. Also you can use the evaluation forms to identify areas that really don’t need to be covered and you can eliminate these things from your training program and save your company time and money spent on employee training.