What Is Employee Training? Importance, Types, Methods & More
Effectively training your employees allows you to stay competitive during technological advances, increases productivity, and improves employee retention by showing your employees you care about their professional growth.
However, employee training and development needs continuous monitoring and supervision from managers or the HR team if you wish to see your employee achieve their learning goals and minimize skill gaps in your company.
This guide will explain everything you need to know about employee training. We'll talk about types of employee training, how to choose suitable training methods, and why it’s vital to your organization.
💪 What is employee training?
💡 Employee training in Human Resource Management (HRM) systematically teaches employees the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in their roles. It's an ongoing process that begins when workers join your organization and continues for as long as they're employed there.
Practical employee training fosters ongoing growth and development throughout a worker's time with your company. Investing in the employees you already have helps you mitigate the impact of labor shortages and changing skill requirements.
Onboarding vs. Training?
Onboarding introduces new employees to a company that lasts for a few months. It helps new hires fit into their roles and increases productivity and retention rates.
Employee training and development is an ongoing education process that keeps employees updated on skills and trends.
The two intersect when onboarding requires education on role-related skills via training.
For example, a service-based company might ask all new hires to complete mandatory training related to client confidentiality as part of onboarding.
❗️ Why is employee training important?
An effective training plan benefits your employees and the company in many ways.
Let's take a closer look at some of these benefits.
👩💼 Employee training benefits for workers
Thinking strategically about employee training and development creates a learning culture throughout your organization. With a learning culture in place, everyone understands the importance of employee training and prioritizes it accordingly.
Here are just a few things your workers gain from employee training:
- Job satisfaction: When workers know how to do their job and have the resources to do it well, they feel more satisfied. Moreover, learning and development opportunities boost job satisfaction by demonstrating an employer's commitment to employees' personal and professional well-being. Happy employees are more engaged at work, increasing productivity and retention.
- Leadership development: Employee training offers opportunities for every hire to develop new skills and prepare to lead the company in the future. Not only is this enticing to workers, but it also helps prepare for the longevity of your organization.
- Career mobility: Effective employee training shows your staff a clear path for growth and career mobility within the company. By consistently gaining new knowledge and skills, workers can prepare themselves for any innovation in your industry — or even lead the change themselves.
Employee engagement increases when workers have a clear path for development and access to training.
With more engaged employees, your organization reaps benefits across the board.
🏢 Employee training benefits for the company
Engaged employees are effective employees. In fact, engaged workers are 17% more effective than non-engaged employees.
Engagement translates into increased productivity, talent retention, and profits on a company-wide scale.
Let's take a closer look at these employee training benefits:
- Improved productivity: Customized role-based training can shorten a new hire's or any employee transitioning to a new role time to productivity. An early focus on productivity also supports the new hire in feeling more successful in their position, leading to quicker job satisfaction.
- Talent retention: Satisfied employees with a clear understanding of opportunities for growth within the company have little reason to look for work elsewhere. According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report, three of the top five factors that drive people to pursue new jobs reflect their desire to stretch, grow, and develop new skills. So, if you’re not investing in employee training at your company, you’re susceptible to losing your employees to your competition.
- Skill gap closure: With a formal employee training plan, you can identify and remedy any team gaps in skills or knowledge. Whether you're trying to meet the core functions of a role or looking to future-proof your organization's leadership, employee training is the way to address any lacking skills.
- Industry competitiveness: Developing your employees individually and as a team gives you an advantage over your competitors. You can pinpoint areas of weakness and train your employees to overcome them. Collaborative learning cultures also breed creativity and innovation, giving you an even more competitive edge.
Together, these employee training benefits add up to increased profits.
When you foster your employees' development per your company's needs, you create an environment brimming with productivity and creativity. Add in the cost savings from retaining your top talent, giving you a wider profit margin.
💡 6 Types of employee training
You can educate your employees using a training method that aligns with your goals, budget, and time constraints.
Here are the six types of employee training:
Onboarding training
Onboarding training is an umbrella term that covers the types of employee training a new hire needs to get started.
For example, when a new hire joins a company, there's so much information they need to know. Not only do they need training in the specifics of their role, but they need to get familiar with company policies and procedures, plus cultural norms, to be truly successful. It tends to focus more on getting workers familiar with company processes than the specific skills to carry out their responsibilities
💡 Often, onboarding training will encompass some or all of the other types of employee training listed here.
Technical training
Technical training, sometimes called role-based training, covers employees' specific skills to do their job.
Because it depends on an employee's position, technical training needs to be highly customized to each team or role. For example, the People Ops team can oversee employee learning and development from a high level, but technical training also requires the cooperation of a new joiner's manager and peers.
Typically, technical training focuses on the technologies employees will utilize in their role, emphasizing keeping up with competitors. For example, sales training may involve understanding your industry's latest customer relationship manager (CRM) technologies and tactics to maintain a competitive advantage.
Compliance training
Local or federal laws, accrediting bodies, or corporate policies mandate some training topics. Any required training is typically referred to as compliance training.
Compliance training might include:
- Workplace discrimination training;
- Sexual harassment training;
- Health and safety training;
- Security training;
- Diversity training.
It's wise to incorporate some compliance training into your new employee orientation. This way, new hires have the information they need from the start.
Tip #1: Your People Ops team should closely monitor when policies and regulations change at any level. New rules mean it's time for more compliance training to get everyone up to speed.
Tip #2: Judging by the latest phishing statistics, you should also include data security and privacy training.
Compliance training may need to be completed by every employee every year or so. Build these requirements into your employee training plan, so your organization stays on track with all required training.
Security & safety training
To keep employees and your company safe from both physical and virtual threats, develop thorough security and safety training plans for employees. Some safety training may fall under the umbrella of compliance, but even when it's not required, this kind of training is essential for engaged and productive employees.
Traditional workplace safety training focuses on physical hazards. So if your company operates in person, cover things like fire exits and emergency protocols for your office.
Digital safety and security are now just as crucial for companies, mainly if you operate remotely.
Digital security and safety training can cover things like:
- cybersecurity awareness (e.g., data loss prevention - DLP for Slack);
- phishing training (e.g., Gmail phishing email examples);
- password best practices.
Cybersecurity training for employees can also cover the basics of how your company's digital infrastructure works to protect company, employee, and customer data.
For example, if you use a password manager to give multiple employees access to shared accounts, you should cover when and how to use the cybersecurity tools correctly.
Product
Product training is crucial for educating employees about the features and benefits of your company's products or services. It helps them represent your brand better and is essential for sales, customer service, and marketing teams. Give a product overview during new hire orientation, then provide more profound product knowledge depending on their role.
Pro tip: Ensure that your training plans cover all product-adjacent teams with the required details.
Leadership training
A leadership training plan can boost job satisfaction by addressing employee development needs. It helps managers improve their skills and prepare entry-level- or mid-level workers for increased responsibility. A strategic leadership plan can also foster better team collaboration.
Leadership training can include specific skills around decision-making, giving and receiving feedback, and team communication.
Start preparing future leaders early to protect your company from leadership skills gaps. Non-manager employees can begin developing necessary skills long before the organization needs them, allowing plenty of time to absorb leadership knowledge into their regular work.
👨🏫 6 Methods for employee training
You might think of employee training as long sessions reminiscent of your most boring school lecture. However practical employee training blends several methods and tools to create a training plan customized to each team or role.
- In-person training takes place in a work setting, allowing immediate interaction and feedback between the trainer and the employee. It can be one-on-one or in a group and could be at any location relevant to the type of training.
- Virtual training occurs in dispersed settings, and its use has increased as remote work rises. Virtual training can be live, like a Zoom meeting, via email, Slack, or an employee enablement platform like Zavvy.
- On-the-job training allows employees a real-time view of their work. Managers or peers can give immediate feedback on customer interaction or deliverables, and new hires can ask questions about what they see on the job.
- Peer-to-peer training leverages the informal knowledge of colleagues to improve productivity and skill sharing. Coworkers can share insights from performing the job daily while building networks for collaboration, productivity, and creativity.
- Microlearning reinforces training concepts through short bursts of learning daily. Grounded in cognitive science, your employees can access microlearning via email or Slack to make it easy for new hires to complete training and retain knowledge.
- Social learning relies on employee collaboration to share knowledge and skills. It helps workers feel welcomed into the company culture while building a collaborative environment.
📈 Employee training trends
As the workforce continues to evolve, keeping an eye on employee training trends is critical so your training and development program can remain as effective as possible.
Employee training is trending toward being more interactive and engaging, with tactics like gamification and scenario-based learning drawing trainees into the subject and helping them retain more information.
➡️ Stay updated with the latest trends in workplace learning and development. Start leveraging current employee training trends.
🔍 How to choose the right training method for your people
The best employee training is customizable to each worker's needs and role.
Creating customized training plans for every employee is no small feat for your Learning and Development team. To do so, you need to consider:
- The organization's long- and short-term goals
- Your current workforce resources
- Training budgets and other constraints
- The kind of training that your employees need or want
- Start by considering why you want to conduct training. What specific organizational problem or employee skill gap are you trying to solve?
- Then, compare your workers' current skills and knowledge to the abilities you'd like them to have. You can use competency models or employee surveys to understand the gap between your employees' skills and where you want them to be.
- Now, you have a list of the specific skills you must address in your training plan. With this list, you can evaluate your current training plans and resources or assess new employee training methods you'd like to use.
At Zavvy, we're all about data-driven people development: Your system should be based on insights from career frameworks and 360 feedback to identify training needs and tailor your strategy to actual skills gaps.
Is customized training always the best solution?
Different employee training methods have their advantages in specific contexts. On-the-job training might be the most efficient way to train employees to upskill a few entry-level workers into more complex work.
Meanwhile, standardized training programs ensure everyone is proficient in using the latest technology. For example, employees in an IT department can be upskilled using standardized training on a new software or technology implementation.
For reinforcing broad concepts for your entire team, microlearning training modules deployed via Slack will likely yield better results for the lowest investment of resources.
👀 What does effective employee training look like?
How do you know when you've implemented an effective employee training program?
Ideally, your employees will have fewer knowledge and skill gaps and increased productivity and retention. But let's take a closer look at the key characteristics of an effective training program.
- Clear strategic plan: Effective training understands the overall business goals and can connect employee training directly to those goals. It also helps workers see their paths for development within the company.
- Collaboration between HR and team leaders: People Ops understands training, but managers understand their team. Effective training incorporates a high degree of cooperation between People Ops and team leaders to ensure that training meets teams' needs on an operational level.
- Multiple training methods: Varying how you engage employees in training can help improve its effectiveness. You'll match the suitable training method to the proper knowledge or skills while keeping employees engaged and interested in completing training.
- Ongoing feedback and evaluation: Creating strategic training plans for your organization isn't a one-time project. As the workforce evolves, your training needs will shift too. By incorporating feedback mechanisms into your training program, you'll always have a sense of the company's current employee training needs.
➡️ Learn how to evaluate your training effectiveness so you can always fine-tune your training programs to meet the exact needs of your workers.
🏢 Real-world examples of training and development programs
Read our case studies explaining how leading companies implement employee training and development initiatives.
- Employee training and development at Spotify
- Google's innovative training and development programs
- Amazon’s process of employee training and development
➡️ Kick off employee training with Zavvy
Investing in employee training is vital for the success of any business. It addresses knowledge and skill gaps, significantly reduces costs, and boosts productivity, leading to higher profits.
Zavvy's learning management software and a library of world-class training courses are designed to nurture your organization's talents and streamline employee development initiatives, leading to a more robust and competitive workforce.
❓ Employee training FAQs
What is employee training and development in HRM?
Employee training and development in Human Resource Management (HRM) is the strategic process of equipping staff with skills and knowledge to enhance job performance and professional growth. It spans onboarding for new hires and continuous learning initiatives, fostering a skilled and adaptable workforce. This crucial HR function aligns employee development with organizational goals, ensuring a dynamic and competent team that evolves alongside the company's needs.
What’s the difference between employee training and employee development?
Employee training sharpens current job skills in a short-term, group-oriented setting. It targets immediate needs through activities like classes and simulations. Employee development, in contrast, is a long-term, diverse effort for overall growth. It readies individuals for future roles, encompassing activities from mentoring to workshops.
While training is job-specific and measurable, development spans group and individual settings, nurturing career growth over time. In essence, training is the sprint, addressing immediate needs; development is the marathon, fostering sustained success.
What are the benefits of employee training and development?
Investing in employee training and development offers key benefits:
- Faster innovation: Enables swift adoption of new technologies, ensuring a competitive edge and ongoing innovation.
- Improved retention: Enhances satisfaction, reduces turnover costs, and attracts high-caliber professionals.
- Leadership development: Nurtures promotable talent through mentorship, fostering independence and future leaders.
- Higher productivity: Improves job proficiency, innovation, and task management for efficient results.
- Enhanced company culture: Aligns with crucial elements, fostering transparency, positivity, and continuous improvement.
- Workplace relationships: Creates a bonding experience, promoting collaboration and boosting engagement.
What is the most common type of employee training?
While the answer to this question is subjective and depends on factors like organization size, goals, and type, on-the-job training (OJT) is pretty common as it can start on autopilot when a new hire joins a company.
It involves real-time learning within the work environment, allowing employees to acquire practical skills and knowledge as they perform their tasks. This hands-on approach is widely used to quickly orient new hires and upskill existing staff, aligning learning with actual job responsibilities.
What are the training needs for employees?
Employee training needs vary, but standard essentials include role-specific skills, industry compliance, and technological proficiency. Using a training needs assessment to identify gaps, you can assess an employee's training needs. Regular evaluations ensure training aligns with changing needs, promoting continuous development.
What is an example of training and development?
In many tech companies, training involves a coding bootcamp for new hires. They get hands-on training in programming languages, development tools, and agile methodologies. Ongoing modules cover emerging technologies, cybersecurity, and collaborative coding. Regular challenges and hackathons foster innovation, enhancing individual skills and contributing to the startup's agility and competitiveness in tech.
What is soft skills training?
Soft skills training improves interpersonal attributes such as communication, teamwork, adaptability, and leadership. It is crucial for excelling in client interactions, team projects, and leadership roles. Workshops on active listening, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence can help employees navigate modern work culture with finesse.