Why Businesses Need Effective Employee Training Materials In 2023
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If you hire an employee to work for your business and they aren’t trained properly, it’ll negatively impact your business. Employers know just how important good employee training is for the success of their company and the overall work environment.
Great employee training programs consist of different types of training materials (Training Manuals, Training Presentations, Custom E-Learning Modules, the list goes on). If you’re hoping to improve your employee onboarding process, motivate employees, and improve company culture, and expect your clients/customers to return or be retained, you need great training materials for your employees.
In this article we explore the critical part that a comprehensive employee training program can have on your organization.
What Is An Employee Training Manual?
To run an effective and efficient business, your employees need to be trained on a regularly to acquaint them with the latest developments, technologies, and skills needed to complete their daily work tasks.
Whether your new hire is for an entry-level position or an executive position, all employers need to provide employees with on-the-job training. Most of the time, this is done with a training manual or training handbook.
While an employee training manual won’t necessarily include every piece of information needed for an in-depth understanding of a position, it should provide enough to enable employees to complete their tasks successfully.
Materials might include PowerPoint presentations and E Learning Course. These can be used as a substitute for or can act as a companion to an employee training manual.
Ultimately, the goal of any training material is to help employees in their current responsibilities as well as future assignments.
How Will Employee Training Materials Benefit My Business?
New hires need the right tools and information needed to complete their job. Employee training is an essential part of any business and can aid in an organization’s growth. While providing employees with proper training is a crucial step, creating effective training materials is just as important.
Creating an employee training program that meets the needs of your employees can have many benefits for your business. Here are just three of the benefits to consider when you create and implement training programs for your business.
Greater Employee Proficiency, Productivity, and Performance
One of the greatest benefits of a strong employee training program is the effect it has on employee performance, proficiency, and productivity.
When an employee knows and understands how to complete their job responsibilities, they will likely make fewer costly mistakes and will achieve greater success in their position. The training process is necessary for many employees to do their tasks properly and successfully. Without it, new employees will not succeed in their position or in the workplace.
Employee productivity, employee efficiency, and professional development can have a strong influence on the overall well-being of your organization and can be achieved with superb training content.
A Better Employee Experience
An employee’s experience at your organization is more important than some employers may think.
Many hiring managers are noticing that employees care about the overall culture of the workplace and their experience while working. If they aren’t having a good experience or don’t align with a company’s values during the interview process, they won’t want to be a part of it. Training managers have a key role in setting up an employee for success and to ensure that they have a great experience. You will want to create an employee training manual that excites the audience about working at the company.
Additionally, training employees shows them that you care about their capabilities and their overall success. Both the employee and the employer benefit from great training manuals. Creating a learning management system that allows employees to do additional training throughout the course of their time at your company also motivates them to continue learning valuable information that can boost their productivity.
As a business owner or training manager, you should seek to create an employee training manual that covers relevant information, information about career growth, the mission and vision of the organization, and how that employee plays a role.
Improved Employee Retention
When it comes to a business’ finances, keeping a current employee is cheaper than hiring and training a new one.
This is where employee training can play a huge role. When employees are trained properly when they are first hired and throughout their time at your company, they will likely stay in that position longer. If your existing training content is stale, outdated, and lacking, you will see negative reflections in your employee turnaround.
Additionally, when a new employee feels adequately equipped to complete their job responsibilities, understands their role in an organization, and sees the growth opportunities, they will not only do good work, but will want to stay and be part of the team.
Spending the money on effective and relevant training presentations and manuals for any new employees can actually save you money that you maybe would have spent on the hiring and training of another new hire.
Effective employee training can positively impact your company’s culture as it can improve job satisfaction, engagement, and employee retention. By embracing employee training and professional development, you and your organization can dramatically reduce employee turnover and increase your talent ROI.
Are There Different Materials I Can Use To Train My Team?
Completing your training objectives is essential to equipping your new hires with the right tools and information needed to do their job. But what materials should you use to train your team?
While every job and employee is different and can benefit from different types of media, here are four different types of materials you might use when you create an employee training program.
Training Manuals
One of the most popular and effective ways to present your training content is through a an employee training manual. The traditional manual format usually includes a basic outline of your company’s story, mission, and history.
Additionally, it will walk the employee through the training information for job tasks and responsibilities they should complete while in the position. Some learning material may include some graphics, charts, or other pictures that the reader can refer to throughout the training. Manuals tend to be information heavy and, while they often do include all relevant information, they aren’t great for knowledge retention.
While an employee training manual is usually printed out as a paper copy, many businesses have moved to a pdf handbook that can be accessed digitally and online.
E-Learning Solutions
Another form of training for new team members might include e-learning solutions and courses that the employee will complete either on their own or as part of a group training.
Depending on the type of position you are training and the needs of the employee, some training managers may deliver training with the use of e-learning courses. These courses include interactive modules that users complete to show their understanding of specific training objectives.
In this example for Cyber Security, the course is broken up into chapters that cover a specific topic and include questions that the user must answer before moving on.
There’s no question that your company can greatly benefit from e-learning solutions.
Not only does this boost knowledge retention, it allows employees to track progress and complete the course at their own speed. While some may complete it in half the time of a traditional training course, some employees may need to move at a slower pace to fully understand the material.
Training Presentations
Another training material you might consider when creating an employee training program is a presentation.
An employee training presentation is a learning material that helps build the right skills that employees need in order to perform their jobs accurately. For optimal results, your training presentations should include lessons that showcase the specialized knowledge in well-structured and easy-to-read slides and that cater to your target audience.
For example, a sales team training presentation will be very different from an IT presentation. Where sales allows for more creativity and discussion, IT processes are usually done “by the book” and need to focus more on understanding current and new software or digital tools. The training needs of both groups will be different and will need different presentations.
An effective presentation will create a great learning experience for your audience and will illustrate the main message throughout the presentation.
Youth Employment Services (YES) was faced with the challenge of developing a training series aimed at you guessed it, increasing youth employment. A typical PowerPoint just wasn’t captivating enough, so we gave them an engaging presentation from start to finish.
Motion Graphic Video Learning
One other material that you might use to meet your training needs is through training videos. While creating training manuals is an easier and perhaps more cost effective way of training your employees, videos can be used to better engage the audience.
As we’ve mentioned, there are different learning styles that work for different employees. A visual learner may gain more from videos than an auditory learner. In order to complete the training needs for a position, you will have to consider the learning styles that best match your employees and the position itself.
Video Learning can also include interactive modules that prompt discussion and ask questions that have to be answered before moving on. Compared to an employee training manual, videos are a great option for many businesses as they can engage a group of new employees in different ways.
What You Need To Think About Before Having Training Resources Created
When you create an employee training manual, presentation, course, or video, you need to first consider a few key things.
Clearly Defining Training Goals
One of the first considerations for an employee training manual or program is the goals you want to achieve with the material. For example, is the goal to provide stepping stones for an employee that they can build off of themselves, or is it to include step-by-step instructions they should follow closely?
Understanding your key goals and objectives will naturally lead to and work better with different materials. If you’re training a lab assistant, you might lean more towards creating a training course that includes more information than that of a creative designer.
Once your goals are clearly defined, you can begin thinking about how you will accomplish those goals in your training program.
Making It Simplified and Streamlined
A priority for any training course should be to keep it fairly simple and streamlined. One way to do so is with a training manual template. Using an employee training manual template that works for a variety of positions can make things easier for both your employee and your hiring manager.
Additionally, avoid overcomplicating the process. While in-depth videos and e-learning courses can be extremely beneficial, they can often be outsourced by instructional designer agencies or graphic designers, like Presentation Geeks. This will prevent an intense employee workload for your hiring manager and can be designed more efficiently.
This was the case for a Lawyer at BelkerPalm Legal who was giving a presentation to a group of law students. Although his experience was vast and his presentation skills were strong, he didn’t have the visuals to back him up. He was relieved to find the Geeks!
Understanding Best Practices In This Digital Age
Digital tools are constantly evolving and a lot of them can be extremely useful when creating an employee training or program.
E-learning and video are two examples of this evolution. As technology continues to grow and expand, don’t be afraid of using these tools when training your employees. Some employers even use online games like Kahoot to create fun and interactive testing elements for employees.
However, it’s also important to prioritize privacy, accessibility, and user experience when using digital platforms and tools. In order to reach your training goals, you have to ensure that employees feel safe using the platform, can understand the information, and can use the platform easily.
Creating An Immersive And Interactive Experience
One of the most effective practices used in training courses is creating immersive and interactive courses. When an employee is engaged with the material, they are more likely to remember it after it has ended. Instead of just reading through a training manual, you might consider prompting discussion with questions from the audience.
Department managers should be utilized when creating the program so they can offer insight into what information and discussions might benefit employees in the training process.
Can It Be Self-Service Training?
Finally, when considering your employee training process, you should consider whether it could be self-serve. This can be done through modules, courses, and videos that the employee must complete on their own. This allows the employees to work at their own pace in order to really grasp the concepts outlined in the training.
Understand That Employee Training Always Evolves
Just as a job function or role can evolve over time, so will your employee training processes. Here are some tips and considerations to keep in mind when creating your manuals or courses.
You Need To Periodically Re-Evaluate Your Training Program
In order to create training manuals that are actually effective and relevant, they need to be updated and re-evaluated periodically. The HR department should ask trainees for their honest feedback on the training they have completed and should go through the training to find weak spots that can be edited. This work can be critical in creating an effective course or manual for your employees.
Learning Objectives May Need To Change
Remember the goals you created before making your training presentation? Those need to be re-evaluated and changed as well. As goals are accomplished or visions change, your objectives and goals need to change with them. If you stick with outdated goals, your employee training manual can become ineffective.
Always Inform Employees Of New Training Opportunities
Finally, a great employee training process will always educate and inform the employees of growth and training opportunities. Professional development is a key component of both company culture and employee productivity. Providing information on these additional training and development opportunities can show your employees that you care about their success within your business.
Our Final Thoughts On Employee Training Materials
All in all, effective employee training programs can be extremely influential on the state of your business and employees. Whether you create a training manual or use other digital tools to present your information, effective materials are necessary and crucial for success.
Looking To Motivate And Educate Your Team? The Geeks Are Here To Help
Let us take creating these materials off your hands. At Presentation Geeks, we have years of experience creating effective presentations and learning materials that can boost your employee training department. Need a training manual template? What about an e-learning course? A training presentation? We can do it all!
Want to work with us? Click the link below to see how we can help you!
