5 Ways to Identify Employee Training Needs

Employee training was once reserved for upper management. Now, it’s something that can benefit all employees within a business. It can teach technical skills, like how to use a piece of machinery or soft skills which benefits all roles, such as communication.

Training is a vital part of any successful business. By keeping employees’ skills sharp, they will engage more and be productive in their roles.

However, it’s not easy to adopt or encourage a training-based culture. Knowing you need it is one thing, but creating one takes time. And it requires constant monitoring.

You should be able to identify when and where employees need to upskill so that you can send them for the right training at the right time. Here are five ways to do this:

1. Set Clear Expectations for Their Role

Before someone joins your company, make sure they understand what’s expected of them. What skills do they need? Do they need to know anything as part, such as how to use a piece of software with regular updates?

Give your employee a list, so they have clear guidelines for reference. Your new staff will then understand what is expected for them. It helps keep your new employee in the role. Plus, it makes the hiring process easier because you’ll attract better quality candidates more suited to the job.

As an employer, you get an idea of the types of training programs that most benefit your staff based on the requirements of their position.

2. Set-up Mentoring and Coaching Programs

Mentoring and coaching programs can help employees with aspects of their growth. Programs can help identify areas where employees need to improve, and as a way to train employees.

As mentoring and coaching programmes are usually long-term, a coach or mentor can easily monitor staff growth. Your staff are then at an advantage when it comes to identifying gaps in their knowledge or areas they’d like to expand on.

3. Monitor Performances

Monitoring performance is key to knowing if and when your employee is ready for training.

For example, an employee who’s feeling disengaged in their role is a prime candidate for training.

Training can help re-engage them or even re-skill them. You keep their existing knowledge of the company in-house while encouraging them to try something new if they’re no longer happy in their current role.

4. Use Personal Development Plans

Personal development plans set out clear paths for employees to achieve their goals. An employee looking for a promotion knows exactly what steps they need for the promotion they want. As part of this plan, they may need to reskill or upskill in certain areas. A personal development plan can include training programmes to help them achieve their promotion.

5. Get Feedback on Employee Training

The best way to identify training opportunities is to ask employees. Make it clear you want them to be open and honest, or they may not go into as much detail as you’d like.

You could get this feedback in the form of a survey sent to everyone, or in a one-to-one format. It depends on what sort of answers you need.

Do you want suggestions on how to improve the company’s training schemes? Or do you want to know how to help a particular employee? Knowing what your goal of employee feedback is will give you a direction for your feedback search.

Conclusion

Training is an important part of employee development, regardless of an employee’s position in the business. It can help everyone from the apprentice to the CEO.

It doesn’t have to be limited to technical skills such as how to use equipment or industry trends. And it can also include soft skills like management or communication.

All these skills work together to create a better, more productive working environment that encourages employees to stay and attracts higher quality candidates when you’re hiring.