By Kamy Anderson
Training is a must for every organization, but which programs should you prioritize?
Regular workforce development is an essential part of internal strategy for any company, but this training can put a strain on the budget. Fortunately, companies today don’t have to send their employees to expensive training programs, seminars, and congresses–it can all be done digitally.
Online corporate training has been made cost-efficient thanks to employee training software, but now that it’s so ubiquitous and streamlined, how is a company to choose which training programs to deploy when there are so many options?
Some skills can help you grow your business regardless of your industry. Below, you will find corporate training programs every employee should take.
Project Management
Efficient project management is the bread and butter of successfully doing business. Did you know that almost 40% of projects fail because milestones and objectives are not appropriately defined? In addition, a survey found that 80% of organizations spend 50% of their time reworking projects that have gone sideways.
Markets have become volatile over time, and there are new challenges companies have to overcome to stay competitive. It all starts with efficient project management. Employees have to be equipped with the right knowledge and skills to deliver what is expected of them.
Project management training will help them learn best practices, prevailing trends, and how to better utilize project management software to minimize the risks while meeting the deadlines.
When choosing between project management training programs, make sure that they incorporate every vital aspect of project management. For instance, well-rounded training covers the entire lifecycle of a project: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, controlling, and closing.
Time Management
Time management is closely related to project management, but it is a skill that is connected with the internal workflows of your departments, as well as individuals. And, when you think about it, it is the only resource that’s limited in every organization. By learning to utilize it better, you will be able to stand out from the crowd and achieve your business goals easily.
Poor time management can result in a variety of problems, ranging from poor work quality and missed deadlines, to stress and bad communication. If you notice this happening in your company, the time has come to introduce your employees to time management training.
Proper time management training should encompass several significant areas, including productive work planning and task prioritization, interruptions management, and the implementation of relevant technologies and software.
Leadership Training
Leaders are vital to every organization regardless of size or target market. Employees usually model their behavior on their leader’s actions, and tend to aim for the same goals as an authority figure. More importantly, the chances are that some of your employees will become leaders in your organization. You have to do everything in your power to promote healthy leadership skills and values.
Bad leadership qualities usually include lack of flexibility, no forward-thinking, lack of enthusiasm, poor communication, and no integrity.
All this can reflect on your business in several ways. Some of them include low productivity, loss of motivation, poor resource management, and a negative work culture overall.
Everyone in an organization should go through leadership training. Proper training should enable workers to learn about core leadership practices, leadership styles, proper task delegation practices, team motivation, data-driven decision making, and conflict and performance management.
Effective Communication
If there is one thing that you could do to improve your bottom line, then it would probably be communication. Your workforce is the backbone of your business, but communication is what holds that backbone together. Don’t forget that external communication is as essential as internal, especially in terms of building long-lasting relationships with customers and partners and ensuring repeat business.
Ineffective communication can delay your projects, contribute to negative work relationships, and cause unsustainable employee turnover. Fortunately, there are plenty of online corporate training opportunities to help you improve communication.
Don’t forget to encourage employees to practice good communication. Programs delivered via employee training software can provide a strong foundation. Workshops and team building activities can utilize this knowledge to facilitate even better communication.
Aim for the programs that incorporate lessons covering non-verbal communication, efficient problem resolution, and feedback. Also, explore various options to keep communication channels open, both digital and person-to-person.
Diversity Training
If we compare modern workplaces with those that existed a few decades ago, we can easily spot one key trend: modern workplaces are more diverse. While diversity is a good thing, it can cause a lot of problems as well, especially if employees don’t understand each other or don’t have the skills to cope with cultural differences.
Diversity can be a huge advantage. However, to start leveraging it as an advantage, you will have to help your workforce understand what it is and how to embrace it completely.
There are a lot of studies online claiming that diversity training is nothing but flushing your money down the drain, but one of the recent meta-analyses of diversity training reports from the past 40 years tells a different story. Diversity training can work as long as it promotes awareness and becomes a long-term effort. The two exercises that show the best results are clear goal-setting and perspective-taking (walking in someone else’s shoes).
Technical Skills Development Training
New technologies emerge every day. Some of these technologies can help your organization increase productivity, optimize workflow, automate tasks, and more. But technologies are only as good as how your employees can put them to use.
This is why investing in technical skills development training is a good idea. It will help your employees learn how to technically excel at their tasks, and facilitate knowledge transfer whenever you decide to adopt new software.
Since the tech industry keeps working relentlessly and new solutions come out every now and again, technical skills development training should be an ongoing effort.
These six training modalities make a perfect online corporate training strategy. You don’t have to incorporate them all at once–after all, your organization and workforce are unique. You should only pursue the training that goes along with your business needs, and the development needs of your workforce.
About the Author
Kamy is an ed-tech enthusiast with a passion for writing on emerging technologies in the areas of corporate training and education. He is an expert in learning management systems and elearning authoring tools, and currently associated with ProProfs Training Maker.
Header Image by Victor Freitas on Unsplash.
