Every community or organization needs to properly train its community members or employees to continuously produce quality work. Unfortunately, training is among the most commonly overlooked aspects of leadership and organization. Below are some reasons why it’s necessary and how you can apply it in your establishment.
The Importance of Training
Many employees or community members eventually leave not just because of mismanagement but also because of feelings of failure or the lack of skill to accomplish tasks. However, studies have shown that with adequate training, people are more inclined to stay as they feel fulfilled and productive. Add this to an increased rate of productivity and overall quality of work. As a result, training becomes an integral part of running a business or a community. It strengthens the skills of your employees and provides them with more opportunities as opposed to letting them learn and fend for themselves.
Identify Skills Necessary
To better train someone, whatever the industry might be, you need to know the fundamental skills needed in your field. Identifying the relevant skills and abilities should come naturally, and creating a codified and hierarchical program plan is the key to producing highly effective trainees. Of course, you can use the standard set of fundamental skills recommended within your industry. However, sitting down and taking a long hard look at what skills really are necessary, not just within your field but also within your company or organization, will help you teach your trainees.
Make Sure All Trainers Are Well-equipped
On the trainer side of things, it’s important not to overlook your trainers. They’re the ones out there teaching and imparting their knowledge: they need to have the tools and equipment necessary to do so. Teachers have a classroom and all the items associated with schooling. So it only makes sense for an establishment to provide whatever tools are needed.
Especially if you’re in a highly technical and detailed industry, it’s best to provide live items for your trainers to use and trainees to practice on. Investing in training is something that no company, profit or non-profit, should ignore. The products of training will appear in the efficiency of accomplishing employees’ tasks.
Provide Review Materials
Training doesn’t end during the allotted training period. Especially for trainees, they may want to review and go over whatever it is they’ve learned throughout the day. Other professions rely heavily on reviewing. For example, civil lawyers study the law non-stop, doctors keep themselves updated on the latest medical news. The same applies to your industry: provide relevant review materials to their current program and general industry discussions. This better exposes them to what they need to know and prepares them for actually working.
Respect Their Learning Pace
Traditional training methods are usually time restrictive and don’t allow employees to digest what they are learning. But in this modern time, that’s no longer the case. Everyone learns at their own speed, and hindering your employee’s learning process by rushing them right after training is not actually efficient. In fact, allowing your people to take a pause and reflect on what they have just learned can make them understand better. This ensures more success after training than being thrown into the fire immediately with barely enough practice.
Allow Mistakes During Onboarding
Everyone makes mistakes, especially when starting. As someone who leads an organization, it’s best to plan with mistakes factored in. Especially when dealing with newly onboarded employees, they will make mistakes, and they will overlook smaller things. These must be all factored in, and you, as the leader, must be prepared to deal with them. These mistakes are crucial for their learning, as they will most likely remember not to commit these same mistakes again.
However, besides being forgiving towards newbie mistakes, you can also work hard to prevent them from happening in the first place. Allow more time for practical training, and try partnered learning. Assign a new member to a veteran, and let the newbie shadow the seasoned employee. The vet will be more than happy to provide valuable tips and pointers coming from their experience, and the newbie will do well to follow those tips.
People are your most valuable resources. They’re the ones responsible for running the day-to-day tasks, meeting requirements, and making the whole establishment work. Simply relying on them without properly training them is like expecting a garden to grow on its own. You need to put in the effort to cultivate and hone them, and eventually, their efforts (and yours as well) will prove fruitful and beneficial.
