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The current economic downturn is dominating news articles, talk shows and daily conversations. In the same breath, research is reporting the importance of business leaders driving employee engagement in their organizations to achieve business goals in these tough economic times. The challenge is to determine how best to drive employee engagement with limited financial and human resources. Training is one area where business leaders can focus.
Training can assist in the retention and recognition of key employees to engage individuals that may be feeling unnecessarily vulnerable in their roles. A recent Towers & Perrin Global Workforce Engagement Study (2007-2008) found employees ranked "improving their skills and capabilities" as a key driver for employee engagement in organizations.
Where do you begin? The challenge is to understand that effective training expands beyond the program itself to include a comprehensive and focused training plan that is supported by the business leader. Effective training plans involve:
1. Identifying your organization's needs: A needs analysis identifies what training needs exist in your organization. This involves asking key questions such as - What core skills and abilities are critical to the long term success of your business? What behaviours need to be improved to drive business performance? It also involves a close review of your strategic plan, business goals, business metrics, and employee performance reviews so you can focus appropriately. Needs should be prioritized based on the organization's key strategic goals.
2. Identifying who will benefit from training: With the needs identified, it is important to then determine which employees require training? It might be one employee or alternatively it might be an entire team that requires a shift in behaviour or learning a new skill.
3. Selecting the training program: Selecting an effective training program involves considering a number of factors - what is the training need, who is being trained, what is their learning style, what is the budget, etc. Too often, costly off the shelf programs are selected as the quick fix to address an identified training need without yielding the desired results. Instead, it is important to ensure the training program is structured to meet the identified skill or behaviour gaps of the individual or team
Combined with training programs, formal mentoring programs with experienced employees acting as mentors for employees can assist in developing skills and behaviours. This allows for direct on-the-job learning to reinforce new skills and behaviours with minimal expense (e.g. the mentor's time).
4. Reinforce & implement on the job: Too often employees attend training programs and then permanently file their training materials. It is therefore important to establish a plan to reinforce the learning back on the job. This should be outlined in the employee's annual performance goals and can include actions such as training colleagues, leading a project utilizing the tools, etc. It is critical the business leader supports and reinforces the employee through active participation in the training program, modeling the behaviour or skills learned, and providing ongoing coaching and clear performance goals.
This is a critical time in your organization to ensure you have a solid training plan in place as part of an overall learning and development strategy. The long term results will be a highly engaged and motivated workforce to drive overall business performance and results to weather all economies.
Leaders see beyond their own limitations - and those of others. They develop people into what they could be.
-Jim Clemmer-
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