We’ve seen it again and again. The HR departments that get the best results from their skills training always do nearly all of the following:
1. Collaborate on the training necessary with the various department heads and where necessary with training committees.
2. Have an agreement with the individual being sent on skills training as to the growth path necessary and why the company needs these skills to be developed.
3. Identify the dates for the training early in the year and prioritise them – operational demands will always be there so if the time spent on skills training is seen as an optional extra, believe me it will be treated as one – this is core!
4. Work with a company that gives the delegate a few post workshop options and insist on accountability and sustainability through a KPI tool check such as the Staff Training online KPI checks where the delegate identifies which part of the learning most applies to them and can then identify situations and behaviours that were addressed relating to that training. This leads to sustainable behaviour change.
This approach takes the training from needs identification to fruition simply and effectively.
The alternative is normally quite a nightmare for HR in that sourcing of providers needs to be completed again and again, procurement processes are halted at inconvenient times because of operational requirements and before you know it your skills year has ended and your budget is not spent.
Measuring ROI on skills training can only be done if the measurement criteria are set in advance – and especially with soft skills training this often needs to be done quite creatively, a simple non nonsense approach as in the one outlined above allows for this measurement both before and after training, key to a training budget well spent.
Staff Training presents more than 60 short courses nationwide. Contact us at [email protected] or 0861 996 660.
