One of the key drivers for any company is growth, but growth is more than just performance. According to a Gallup report from 2017, only about 15% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs. Many employees feel unmotivated because of a lack of opportunities for growth and development.
To address this, companies have been stepping up when it comes to employee training and development. More businesses are investing in learning programs for their staff, offering purpose and professional growth. However, this training, while beneficial, can come with its own challenges. Expiring certifications is one of them. AbilityLMS easily handles this and many other issues that employee training creates.
But there are other, manual systems that can be used. Here are a few strategies that you need to do in order to manage expiring training modules, for the benefit of employees and the business as a whole.
Determine Goals and Skill Gaps
In order to comply with government, industry, and organizational compliance requirements, companies and organizations should provide annual or bi-annual training to employees. These training sessions include anti-harassment training, ethics, laboratory safety, driver safety, and more. To do this effectively, businesses should be able to identify their goals and current skill gaps among participants.
Training Journal recommends looking at your business' KPIs, understanding how employees manage their time, and assessing feedback and performance. Once a business has a thorough understanding of the gaps, mapping out training schedules and coverage becomes much easier.
Identify Appropriate Tools
As technology develops, so too does the need for businesses to use tools to tackle training and scheduling. According to Business.com, employers are exploring new tools and trends in employee development. These techniques include making use of Virtual Reality (VR) for complex, tools-based training, micro-learning, simulations, and other learning resources geared towards employee development.
One common mistake when presenting employees with new tools and learning resources is dumping all this new information onto them all at once. This is why one of the main features of AbilityLMS is the ability to create Dynamic Learning Paths that can help aid your employees' overall development.
Cultivating an understanding of these new tools can be especially important when the question of re-training comes up. When an employee has completed a qualification or training session, retraining or shorter refresher courses can be particularly useful prior to expiry. Many of these refresher courses can be done online, so ensuring your business has the infrastructure required to comply is important.
Consider Expansion Plans
Investing in employee training isn't just about individual growth, but about the growth of the company as a whole. As you map out training and development plans, it's important to consider your business' expansion plans as well. People who run businesses understand how crucial it is to rely on a solid business plan that is agile enough to adapt to an economic downturn. This has become increasingly evident in recent months, as the massive shift to work from home operations has thrown many ill-prepared companies and businesses out of sync.
One way your organization can address this issue is through the use of expansive and comprehensive training programs that can help ease the transition to remote work. Shifting to remote work is difficult enough without an economic upheaval. This is why it's important that your team has access to the right tools and resources to help minimize the growing pains caused by this sudden shift.
Manage Information
Another thing your business needs to do is to identify schedule conflicts. Many certification and training courses have expiry dates, with varying deadlines and grace periods. Courses may have retraining requirements or different expirations depending on the audience or employee level (i.e. yearly for a line worker, every 2 years for a supervisor, etc.)
Organizing all this information efficiently can be difficult without the right tools. You'll need a system that can manage pools of data like license numbers, expiry schedules, assessments, and other tracking systems. AbilityLMS is a Learning Management System that can offer all these services and more. Not only is it a highly advanced LMS, we also offer specific courses like our Post-Quarantine and Diversity Training programs that are designed to increase efficiency and help employees adapt during changing times.
Your Next Steps
If you want growth and the ability to create top performers, you need a solid platform that will allow you to manage all aspects of your training. This includes in-person, online, external, on-the-job training and virtually any other form of training. With AbilityLMS, you get a learning management experience that has over 25 years of tested, proven results. Match that with AbilityContent and you get instant access to thousands of ready-to-use software that you can use right now or mix in with your existing training materials.
To experience first-hand how good learning can become in your organization, call us at (800) 868-8039 or schedule a demo.
This is a guest post by content writer Jennifer Birch.
