The first quarter of the financial year is coming to a close. By this time, strategy should be locked and loaded and projects planned for the next few months. This is the time when you can start looking at your employees’, and the value they add to the organisation, and think about creative ways to increase that value. One way to do this is to focus on employee learning initiatives.
Traditional learning is historically driven out of programs and training sessions. This type of learning is a structured intervention that aims to change and improve specific areas of employee productivity. However, not everything needs to be a training course or a 70-20-10.
Instead of sending staff to external learning programs or courses, it’s worth bringing in a few consultants to revamp your learning perspective and create an integrative and immersive experience that not only benefits your employees, but your business returns.
Before you implement any employee training or learning initiatives, you need to identify your upcoming opportunities for employee learning. What are the jobs that need to be done? Where do you need to grow? How can you integrate meaningful and insightful learning into these initiatives? After identifying upcoming opportunities, take a holistic approach to learning. Immerse employees in every part of the learning process from start to finish. Think of it as a greenfield approach to training. You are starting from the ground up. Instead of training employees to do particular parts of the work very well, teach them the big picture view; the entirety of the process. Keep in mind you are teaching employees how to do something for the long run. If you do it right and retain that talent, you develop new skill sets for your talent pool.
In my experience, embedding learning in what is relevant for the business increases ROI significantly more than spending money on a structured, segregated training initiative. Trial and error is inevitable to find out what works best for your business, but ensure you also utilise true measurement and metrics to assess ROI. If you want to find out what really works, you need to think outside the box and design a learning solution that enhances your business initiatives while developing your staff for the long run.
This article was originally published for CEO Magazine
