As a business owner, training your employees is essential to growing your business. Training your employees allows them to expand their knowledge base and improve their skill set to become more effective. While this process can be costly, the return on investment is greater when you’re consistent. Companies that invest in training experience 24% higher profit margins. When you implement a strong training program, fewer employees will leave, translating to significant cost savings.
The following are reasons why you should implement training programs for your employees:
- Improves skills and knowledge
- Prepares employees for higher responsibilities
- Shows your employees they are valued
- Satisfies the recommendations of performance appraisals
Developing a great work culture relies heavily on providing your employees with resources to learn and grow. How will you ensure your employee receives the training they desire?
Train The Trainer
While having an internal training program is a powerful way to ensure your employees are enhancing their skills and knowledge, other approaches exist. The train-the-trainer model is a framework for training employees into experts on a subject to enable them to then train other individuals within your business. For example, a group of employees with excellent leadership skills receives leadership training. Once they learn how to be an excellent leader, they will then teach this content to future employees.
The effectiveness of this technique lies in its ability to teach new skills to a wide range of individuals by using internal resources to scale up the delivery of training. The following are the benefits of this training technique:
- A tailored experience
- A cost-effective practice
- Development of an internal training team
- Allows new employees to ask follow-up questions once the training has concluded
- Internal trainers understand your business better than any external trainer could, allowing them to better tailor their training
Alyse Kimble, Training and Development Coordinator at GMS expresses, "Developing the next generation of leaders is the top challenge for 5% of CEOs. Only 63% of millennials believe that they are being fully developed as a leader by their employers for management positions. This not only causes a problem with employee retention, but it's also causing headaches for HR departments as they struggle to build strong benches for leadership openings within their organization. Having a leadership development plan for your organization is key to your business's success."
How To Get Started
Determining the best option for you and your business might take time. However, at the end of the day, you need to do what’s best for your employees. Your employees want training programs and a path to career advancement opportunities within your business. According to a survey, 76% of employees seek career growth opportunities and training programs. If you’re interested in implementing a train-the-trainer model, follow the steps below to receive the best results to improve your bottom line.
1. Define your goals - You must determine what you want your train-the-trainer course to achieve. Do you want to train them to onboard new employees? Do you want to build a core team of trainers who will train the entire organization when a new product is released? How often do you want them to train other employees?
2. Define how you measure progress - How will you track progress towards these goals in the above step?
3. Design your train-the-trainer course
4. Create training materials
GMS Has Your Back
Training employees, whether they are current or new, takes an extensive amount of time; however, if you do it right, it’s worth it in the long run. When you partner with GMS, we ensure it’s done right. You’ll gain access to online employee training programs targeted to your employees’ specific job functions. The software allows you to streamline job training, improve employee performance, and reduce learning costs for learning platforms and in-person training. Contact our experts today to learn more.