The importance of training in business
What are the formula for success of one business and the cause of failure of another one? Why is training so important to a business?
In today's dynamic world with high competition, business is forced to adapt and discover new things constantly; otherwise, it risks to lose its attractiveness against the background of competitors. Every aspect of a business has its specifics, and only having relevant information and operating up to date knowledge one can succeed.
The emotional rise of employees is the best intangible motivation to work for a quality result in any organization. Business training is the best way to achieve this motivation in a company since most promising employees who make a company profit like to learn and develop. Business courses and seminars, conferences and in-house training allow an employee to increase both hard and soft skills along with overall professionalism. Numerous researches prove that business training increases the loyalty of employees. Thus a company should not be afraid that its employees will leave after training.
A business that has chosen the way of active and continuous improvement of the competencies of its employees will certainly occupy a leading position in the market sooner or later. It is important to remember that competent and well-trained staff is the main source of income.
When, how and why to train staff
Specialists who can move a company forward seldom come from nowhere: instead, they can be prepared by a company itself. Managers and HRs identify promising personnel, select suitable training methods, invest in corporate business training. But these investments can pay off only when the process is built correctly, step by step, and training is conducted regularly and methodically. You can pay quite a lot of money to a business coach for knowledge that will never be put into practice – and all because of the fact that training does not correspond to the current tasks of the company and the needs of employees.
In order for each department to maintain maximum efficiency of its work, it is necessary to develop a schedule of personnel training. Professional training is implemented in several stages:
- Identification of training needs of staff. It is necessary to determine the level of training of each employee and decide what skills and knowledge should be developed, and the result to be achieved.
- Motivation. All efforts are wasted if an employee does not want to study. Motivation increases awareness of the practical benefits of development. When an employee is convinced that boosting skills helps to become more successful, this person makes his/her best in this process.
- Determining the approach to learning. Training can be both internal (only company’s specialists) and external (an outside organization is involved). The choice depends on the goals to be achieved.
- The choice of methods and activities: trainings, seminars, lectures, workshops, business games, case analysis, etc. It depends on the goals and needs of a company.
- Organization of events, that is, the educational process itself. Choose the right place and the right time in order to get the best result.
- Estimation of a result. Estimation of a result allows answering the main question – whether business training enabled to achieve the desired result, and also identify all the errors that can be avoided in the future.
So, the answer to the question "When, how and why to train staff?" can be formulated as follows:
- When? There should be a business training plan, according to which courses should take place on a regular basis. The optimal way is to keep to the following sequence: "personnel training – an introduction of innovations – evaluation of the results – definition of new tasks – personnel training".
- How? Depending on the goal, training in a business can be carried out, using only personnel of a company, or attending public courses, or ordering in-house training – there are several possible ways to find people who have the appropriate experience.
- Why? Any business has certain goals – to occupy a niche in the market, achieve a certain level of sales, get high customer loyalty, etc. Business training courses will help you solve several problems at once.
Methods and types of business training
Today there are quite a lot of forms and types of methods for training in a business to choose from. So your goal is to choose the best type of training according to your goals:
- Self-education. The opportunity to engage in self-education is very important for any specialist. This approach is mainly used to improve hard skills; it has a huge advantage – it does not require any investments and organizational measures. But there are also significant drawbacks – no systematic approach, no teamwork, no guarantee of a positive result. One should not rely too much on self-education, but at the same time do not neglect it.
- Public education. Public training is a set of standard and general solutions offered by professional providers of training services. Such courses are an excellent solution if your goal exactly meets the training topic, but if your problem is complex and includes several different directions, it is better to choose corporate training solutions. The free exchange of experience between the participants of the training, and the atmosphere contributing to active learning are among the advantages of this approach.
- Corporate education. Corporate or in-house training is professional education in which a course is developed and conducted only for a single company – a customer. Accordingly, such training is intended to solve the specific tasks of this customer. When developing an in-house training course in addition to the objectives of a customer, the level of each participant is taken into account, respectively, the course program is maximally customized for a client. This type of training is ideal for complex tasks with certain specifics, and public courses do not offer suitable solutions.
Regardless of the type of business training, applied educational plan and a particular professional area, it is important to maintain a systematic monitoring and regularly evaluate the results. If you have not achieved the desired result, maybe it’s time to change things in the organization of professional training in the company.
Since a company is a single organism, the deterioration of work in one area will certainly affect others, resulting in a chain reaction, only using an integrated approach one can cope with that. In this case, corporate training programs are the best solution. Such programs optimize the company's business processes and increase the effectiveness of its activities, especially in the long run. In the course of their conduct, all aspects of the company functioning are considered, the knowledge of the staff of all departments is systematized, and integrated into a coherent system.
In general, the following can be noted: professional courses from training centers will provide you with the desired result. With proper planning and the use of in-house training solutions, you can achieve the goal with less cost than in the case of public training courses.
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