Investing in training can give your organisation some great benefits, not only for the bottom line but for employee morale also.
Learning and development are at the heart of high-performance organisations. Being a performing organisation is not limited to just large corporations.
Small companies can also be high-impact, and high performance.
Training Models
Choosing the right training model to best fit your organisation is essential in constructing a successful learning and development strategy.
If you have a small company your selection will, in all likelihood, be different to that of a larger company, so, how do you find the right model for your needs?
Measurement
The success of a training program can often be measured with metrics such as Return on Investment (ROI).
ROI can consist of many variables including, direct costs, indirect costs, increased productivity, customer satisfaction, employee turnover, and morale.
Increasing productivity is good, but organisations might want to make sure that training directly impacts the bottom line.
This means that each organisation will have its own method for measuring ROI.
Venue
Selecting training based on location is often one of our first choices.
On-site training can be less expensive and easier than traveling to offsite premises, however, if participants are close to their desks, they might be easily distracted by work tasks and end up attending to these interruptions instead of focussing on the training being provided.
Some larger corporations, especially when participants will be attending training from multiple locations will find that investing in travel and a separate venue would be useful and worth the money, improving the bottom line more than the direct costs.
Medium and larger companies with a separate area for training would be well-matched for on-site training but smaller businesses could make it work if they provided encouragement for participants to attend the training.
Organisations of all sizes could use a shorter one-on-one or roving session that is designed to take place at the employee’s desk.
This can work best as it reduces time away from daily tasks, increases productivity by enabling employees to work on their own files/applications, and improves employee morale/satisfaction from being able to work directly on computer issues related to their job.
Another option is to have Live Online Training. Participants would receive their training via the internet at their desk or any other location with internet access.
This is a great option when travel is cost prohibitive.
Size and Duration
The class size and duration of training can have an effect on any training solution, whether at a large corporation or small company.
Creating shorter classes or reducing the number of participants would decrease direct costs but may not provide the overall productivity increases desired.
In a small company, training one or two employees may have a bigger effect on the bottom line versus training one or two employees in a larger corporation.
However, setting up more focused sessions with participants all at the same skill level, could significantly increase learning and enhance employee morale.
Another benefit is the knowledge sharing that comes after such sessions.
Instructor
The instructor that is chosen for training could be one of the most important decisions.
If an in-house expert is not available or does not have the expertise in a given area, hiring an outside trainer with the right level of experience and knowledge to do the training may be the best option.
At Keystroke Learning our trainers are experienced professionals with extensive classroom teaching experience (over 20 years for each facilitator), as well as advanced levels of subject knowledge.
All our trainers are recognised as Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCT) and have Microsoft Certified Application Specialist (MCAS) Instructor and or Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Master Instructor qualification plus TAE40110 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment.
No matter what training model you choose, careful planning and thoughtful content development needs to take priority in order to develop and maintain a high impact performing organisation.
