A high quality training program starts with a person – a champion. We’ll call this person the program manager. In some organizations this person might be the training and development manager, learning and development specialist, training coordinator, chief learning officer… there are a lot of options here. Regardless of job title, this person is the one who manages training and development.
Program managers are responsible for planning and executing all training initiatives within an organization. An ideal training program manager is inherently curious, open-minded, motivated, and invested in developing employees’ skills to help them reach their potential. They are committed to learning and are constantly working to improve their own skills and competencies.
Additionally, this person is usually tasked with marketing the training program internally, so that employees are aware of development opportunities. Other important skills include problem solving, business acumen, and leadership skills.
In getting started, the program manager must be able to identify the needs of an organization. This is where curiosity comes into play – they must take time to understand the past, present, and future direction. A needs assessment can be conducted through research, interviews, and internal surveys.
At the core of any effective training program is correctly identifying who needs to be trained, and on what skills or topics.
A “training need” is the gap between current performance and required performance. For example, if you find that you have unsatisfied customers, there might be a need for customer service training for your sales and support teams.
Once needs are identified, they must be aligned with organizational initiatives. The program manager should build a curriculum to address problems in the organization and support business goals. By following this model, employees will be more likely to understand the training and it will be supported by managers and leaders.
The impact to the organization is the critical piece. No one wants to do something just to do it – you must have a purpose.
When linking training to organizational strategy, you will be able to easily identify the above or bottom line indicators – are you saving the company money or making the company money?
The outcomes of training employees can be difficult to quantify. However, when the program manager is able to determine organizational needs that are aligned with the business, quantifying training becomes much easier.
When developing goals, make sure metrics give the whole picture, including quantity, quality, time, cost and effectiveness. You’ll want to develop a benchmarking strategy for evaluating your progress towards your goals and ensure that data and reports are easily available to provide you with the information that you need.
Schedule time to monitor, analyze and review progress towards goals on a regular basis. This will allow you to become agile and shift strategy as needed.
Understanding how to evaluate your training and development programs is a big piece of proving their value and seeing how to increase training effectiveness.
Providing relevant training content is key to a good training program, to ensure your learners are engaged and continue to come back for more.
The modern learner today is distracted, overwhelmed and has little time to spare. Catering content to their needs is not only important – it’s critical.
The training content you present to your employees must be applicable and timely to help them with their daily duties, expand their mind, and provide them with quick takeaways that can immediately be applied.
We in Sandbox involve ourselves in various training which are listed below –
- Sandbox develop the front liners to take professional calls by training them with some amazing soft skills training.
- We give training as per the requirement of our clients pertaining to Process and Products.
- Sandbox’s partner is a differently abled champion, hence he involves himself in various motivational and inspirational training.
- We believe in developing and brushing the skills of our talented candidates by guiding them in their respective fields.
- We organize online IT and NON-IT seminars with industry’s leaders.
- We publish relevant and informative articles from time to time keeping our readers requirement in mind.
- Sandbox team is also into digital marketing training, a lot of candidates already enjoyed our workshops and are doing well.
- Sandbox prepares their candidates to take “ONE BIG STEP” by helping them with their communication skills.