Give More to Get More: 4 Employee Training Programs You Should Offer

Monday’s don’t have to suck.

If you’re noticing that your employees are dragging their feet to get stuff done, or they’re just not performing the way you want them to, it’s probably time to hit the refresh button.

How? With an engaging employee training program.

We’ve put together four ideas for your next training session that’ll make your employees proud to work for you. That way, Monday’s won’t be their least favorite day of the week.

1. Team Building

Team building activities are the best way to bring a sense of fun and community back into your business. Plus, they actually contribute to better collaboration in your workplace for many reasons.

First, they can be a great way to reward your staff by making happy memories together outside of work. This boosts employee morale, and happy workers are productive workers. They are more likely to cooperate at work if they’ve had the chance to get along outside the workplace.

Team building training sessions are also a great way to build your employees’ confidence.

People can show their natural talents outside of the office during a fun activity, which you might never have learned about at work. Learning more about their personality and strengths can help you set them up for success at work. With this new knowledge, you can have them do tasks that are tailored to their individual needs.

Finally, by working through fun activities as a team, your employees will get over any personal communication issues they may have. Team building activities help people forget office politics and focus on creative problem-solving.

Throughout the process, they’ll build trust in each other and in you as a leader.

2. Presentation Skills

One of the most important parts of building your team is making sure you have some consistency. By that, we mean that hypothetically, you should be comfortable with every single one of your employees giving an unexpected presentation about your business.

If the thought of several of your employees with a microphone and an audience scares you, you should strongly consider providing employee training on presentation skills.

If everyone on your team is comfortable and confident speaking knowledgeably about your business, you’ll create a really strong image of your brand. You’ll stand out from competitors to your customers because they’ll recognize the consistent high-quality communication.

This kind of reputation will certainly convert to higher sales and customer retention.

More importantly, developing your employees’ ability to communicate well will show them you care about their success. Employees who get the opportunity to learn about public speaking are likely to stick around for the long haul because they know their boss values their professional growth.

3. Strategic Thinking

The Six Sigma method is a detailed way of improving a business process to lower the number/frequency of mistakes or issues. In the simplest of terms, these are the 5 steps:

1. Define: Figure out your goals and target customer.
2. Measure: Take data on the key elements of the current process you’re going to improve.
3. Analyze: Determine the causes and effects of the data you collected.
4. Improve: Adjust the process or create a new process altogether that addresses the causes of previous issues.
5. Control: Track the progress to make sure the new plan continues to reduce the previous issues.

Having all your employees well-trained in the concepts of Six Sigma will make your business run more smoothly and consistently. As a result, your customers will be more satisfied with your products or services because they’ll be getting exactly what they pay for every single time.

Enrolling your employees in programs like this course can bring your company greater profits by teaching them the importance of data-driven decisions and quality control.

Another bonus of this type of training is that employees walk away with a universally respected certificate that makes them a stand-out candidate for future leadership opportunities. They’ll feel like you’re investing in them personally, not just for your own benefit as a boss.

4. Mentoring

On-boarding can be a stressful time for new hires. To make this transition easier, peer training is highly effective. That’s because it is an organic, individualized way to learn the company.

Mentor training programs are also useful for your business because they make employees more comfortable asking questions and pointing out problems. Having a specific person to go to when the going gets rough is extremely helpful, especially for your employees who are least likely to speak up.

Once these employees are seasoned, they become mentors themselves. The process of developing from the newbie to the mentor will give your employees a sense of personal responsibility to your business.

This type of training creates a community within your company. The goal is for everyone to help each other grow in some way.

Follow Through on Employee Training

Changes don’t happen overnight. People learn the best when what they’re taught is consistently reinforced.

You should reinforce any employee training you do in order to make sure it actually works! As a boss, you can lead by example and demonstrate the qualities you expect from your employees. You can also facilitate conversations following the training sessions to recap what they’ve learned.

However you choose to do it, it’s essential to any form of employee training that you continually reinforce the lessons you want your people to learn. That’s how you make a lasting positive change to the culture of your company.

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