Business Management Training Development: The Workforce Returns!
Written by WebCaptain on April 5, 2021
Getting Back Into the Groove With TEM’s Business Management Training Development
As Business Management Training Development plans for the full reopening of their enterprises and the return of their employees, leaders will need to address the training and development needs of their workforce in order to fully recapture the performance and productivity that they enjoyed pre-pandemic. The world we once knew is now gone forever. Those who recognize the changes and adapt to them will survive; others stuck in the past will wilt and disappear.
A recent study conducted by TalentLMS surveyed 282 employers and 4000 full-time employees in the US to learn more about the state of training right now. According to their findings, 42 percent of employees have independently pursued training since the start of the pandemic while over 40 percent of surveyed employers said they have stepped up their upskilling and reskilling efforts since the COVID pandemic began last March.
Donald J. Ford, Ph.D., Training and Human Resource Consultant
When asked why they sought more training, employees identified the desire to improve their employability by expanding their job skills as the number one reason, but many also simply cited the joy of learning something new. With more time on their hands than many had ever experienced before, many stay-at-home staff decided to pursue new learning, thanks to e-learning. Virtual instructor-led training has exploded as a response to COVID restrictions on in-person learning and many webinars are free or low cost.
For business managers, the main reason to train employees is to improve productivity, something that 91% of employers who provide training cited as a benefit of upskilling employees. Other benefits include increased employee morale and lower turnover. Many employees cited access to training as a reason to remain with an employer while also indicating a lack of training opportunities as a major reason to look elsewhere.
As for the type of training that produces the best results, experts recommend focusing on essential job skills that help employees improve their performance in terms of quality and efficiency. A good place to start is with the businesses’ existing policies and job procedures and its job descriptions. What results are employees supposed to produce? How are they measured? Are there clear work procedures in place and have employees been trained on them? If business management doesn’t know the answers to these fundamental workforce questions, they had better find out and fast. One key to the post-COVID recovery will be how quickly businesses can rehire and reengage their workforce to meet the challenges of a different marketplace.
To the 60% of businesses who have not done any training during the pandemic and who believe they can’t afford to provide training now, I have one question: Can you afford to employ untrained staff who make costly errors and waste precious time trying to figure out how to do their jobs properly?
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