Employee training is a process focused on communicating with and teaching an employee information and/or instructions. The purpose of employee training is to improve the employee’s performance or to help the employee gain a necessary level of knowledge and skill to productively, effectively, and profitably perform his or her job.

A commitment to employee training and development by an employer is one of the significant factors in an employee’s choice of employers and jobs.

It is important in predicting whether your organization is likely to retain an employee after hire. Employee training is also a key factor in employee motivation as well as in employee retention.

The opportunity for your employees to continue to grow and develop job and career-enhancing skills is integral to an employee’s happiness and satisfaction with their job. In fact, this opportunity for employees to grow and develop through training is one of the most important factors in employee motivation, engagement, and positive morale. And employee training and development or opportunities to train others are integral components in half of the 18 factors that contribute to reducing employee turnover. Your best employees, the employees you most want to keep, thrive when they have the opportunity to grow through employee training and development options.

Employee Training and Development Secrets

There are a couple of secrets about what employees want from training opportunities, however. These need to guide you as you consider your options for providing employee training.

These two factors are key if you want to multiply the value of the employee training and development you provide. You need to:

• Allow employees to pursue training and development in directions they choose, not just in company-assigned and needed directions. Both are needed and recommended.

• Have your company support learning, in general, and not just in support of the knowledge needed for the employee’s current or next anticipated job. Recognize that the key factor is keeping the employee interested, attending, and engaged in a learning organization environment.

Employee Training Options

Employee training opportunities are not just found in external training classes and seminars.

They are also found in the content of the employee’s job and responsibilities, in internal training opportunities, and finally, through external training opportunities whose impact you can magnify by the activities, you pursue before during and after the employee training.

These ideas emphasize what people want in employee training and development. They also articulate your opportunity to create devoted, growing employees who will benefit both your business and themselves by the employee training opportunities you provide.

Employee Training Options: Job Content and Responsibilities

You can have a significant impact on an employee’s training and development through the responsibilities in an employee’s current job. The content of the job, what the employee does regularly on the job, is also an important factor in employee training and professional development.

These are ideas about how you can provide employee training through the job the employee performs.

• Expand the job to include new, higher level responsibilities that help the employee stretch his skills.

• Reassign responsibilities that the employee does not like, that are routine and that the employee may have been doing for a long time. (They may help another employee stretch and grow while alleviating boredom for the employee in question.)

• Provide more authority for the employee to self-manage and make decisions. These chances to self-manage will help the employee spread her wings and fly.

• Invite the employee to contribute to more important, department or company-wide decisions and planning.

• Provide more access to attend the more important and desirable meetings.

• Provide more high-level information by including the employee on specific email lists, in company briefings, and in your confidence.

• Provide more opportunity for the employee to participate in the process of establishing goals, priorities, and measurements.

• Assign reporting staff members to his or her leadership or management position. You can make the employee grow professionally through managing coworkers as a boss.

• Assign the employee to head up projects or teams to further develop leadership skills.

• Enable the employee to spend more time with his or her boss. The time spent in mentoring, sponsoring and coaching with the boss will expand the employee’s skills.

• Provide the opportunity for the employee to cross-train in other roles and responsibilities.

Source: www.thebalance.com