Employee Training in Today’s Workplace
Is your organization grappling with a constantly changing marketplace and internal reorganizations? As a training and development professional, are you increasingly expected to deliver real organizational benefits from your employee training programs within shorter time frames and often with smaller training budgets? How are you meeting this challenge?
Larger organizations are continuing to adopt ever more comprehensive enterprise-wide Learning Management Systems (LMS) to deliver, track and report training programs and expenditure. Small to medium-sized organizations on smaller budgets are also finding ways to identify, track and report employee skills. Our inexpensive employee training tracking software can help you meet your tight training budget whilst delivering up to the minute automated reports on all aspects of your workplace training.
Training Programs and Project Management
Also having an impact on the training industry is the increased attention being paid to the discipline of project management. “Projects” with unlimited budgets and never-ending timelines trying to satisfy fuzzy organizational objectives are becoming tolerated less and less in today’s business world. Hence, the demand for project management training has seen a dramatic rise in the last ten years. With this we have also seen an increased interest in project management tools and methodologies. Check out our project management software section for tools, templates and guides that can help your organization manage and deliver projects better.
How we manage training projects has also matured. As discretionary budgets have continued to shrink, rolling out expensive employee training programs to satisfy ad hoc requests from department managers with no clear organizational rationale is no longer a viable option. More training projects are now being run using an Instructional Systems Design (ISD) model.
Using such a model guarantees that the learning objectives of the training program tie in with a real organizational need. It also raises an organization’s confidence that the training program will be of high quality and satisfy the needs of all major stakeholders. Check out our guide on writing learning outcomes and our training projects template pack to help you deliver training projects more effectively.
Training Tools and Resources for Effective Training
Budget constraints and increased business competition have also led to a recent emphasis on the payback on training expenditure. Poor training needs analysis (TNA) and change management practices in the past have led to an extravagant wastage of training budgets, with experts estimating that only some 10 to 20 percent of training dollars spent leads to some organizational benefit.
Donald Kirkpatrick’s traditional four-level model remains as the most used model for evaluating the effectiveness of training. This, however, has been supplemented by Jack Phillips with a new fifth level, Return on Investment (ROI). Investigate our training management template pack for some useful resources to help you evaluate the effectiveness of your training programs.
How much are you using the new performance consulting approach in improving the effectiveness of your training programs? With this approach, poor employee performance is diagnosed with an accurate and effective employee performance diagnostic tool before any action is taken.
Using a systems view, all workplace factors influencing employee performance are considered. The upshot is that training may not be the appropriate solution to a performance shortfall in every case. The eventual solution may be multifaceted, highlighting process deficiencies, irrelevant or inadequate rewards and recognition, ineffective goal setting, and so on.
Using this approach, training is no longer a naïve single-point solution, but is perhaps just one component of the final package. Check out our eBook, From Training to Enhanced Workplace Performance, for a practical guide and many customizable templates that you can use to improve the effectiveness of your training programs.
Training Systems Best Practice
Is your training management system becoming more effective and efficient in delivering organizational capability? Many training professionals have continued to move their organizations towards training best practice. Some do not know where to start.
Excellent human resource best practice models have been available for some time. Two prominent examples are the U.S. People Capability Maturity Model and the British Investors in People. As excellent as these models are, they are not specific to training systems. Our training best practice model, however, is specifically designed for training and development practitioners. Our Training Management Maturity Model features an evolutionary approach to achieving best practice. Coupled with an assessment tool, training managers are now able to take measured steps in improving the effectiveness of their training system.
The training management software tools and templates in this section will help you manage your training function and training programs. We invite you to investigate.
|
Click here to find out more about:
|
|
US Dollar
Canadian Dollar
Pound Sterling
Euro
Australian Dollar
Training Tracker is an affordable automated Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that will track all of your training programs and produce a variety of reports. Keep on top of your training providers, program participants, budget and schedules with up-to-the-minute automated training activity and expenditure reports and charts. It will also save you time in data entry and maintain the accuracy of your data through its extensive use of dropdown lists. Stop battling with a mound of paperwork and start using your existing MS Excel skills to track training programs easily and effectively. Put Training Tracker through its paces by trying out our 
Use this comprehensive best practice model and practical assessment tool to assess your current training management system. Build your organizational competency using the model's structured four-phased approach:
Manage training through all phases of your training administration and evaluation cycle with this comprehensive set of form templates and guides. Rely on the experts to have you presenting a professionally presented and complete report, form or analysis in no time. The 19 fully customizable templates cover:
Manage your training program design, development and delivery through all phases of your project with this comprehensive set of tools, templates and guides. This pack will save you valuable time and will get you up and running as quickly and easily as possible. The 12 fully customizable templates cover the following project areas:
Many organizations implement expensive training programs only to find that the expected benefits do not materialize. Whether you are an experienced or novice training professional or manager, this practical guide will give you all that you need to get more impact from your workplace training programs and to objectively measure that impact. To get you up and running as quickly as possible, the book is packaged with over 20 customizable Microsoft Word and Excel templates, guides and forms that you can use in all your improvement and evaluation activities.
Many training programs serve no useful purpose for the organization. A primary cause of failure is poorly defined program objectives and learning outcomes. This guide and workbook is designed for trainers, facilitators, instructional designers and training managers who want to get more out of the training programs they design and conduct. By following the step by step guide, you will successfully articulate and focus on organizational objectives and required performance on the job to improve the effectiveness of your workplace training programs. 
This blank lesson plan template will assist you in creating an effective plan for each training session. With it, you will clarify objectives, identify resources required and structure and pace your session.
