Plan that Employees Will Love [+ Templates]" width="100%" height="300" /> Plan that Employees Will Love [+ Templates]" width="100%" height="300" />
Employee training has evolved into a more competitive field as organizations worldwide have realized the need and benefits of training employees. The American Society for Training and Development report found that companies that invest in training have a 24% higher profit margin—proving that training can be an investment worth making.
But to get good results, you’ll need to create effective employee training. Like everything else, it takes effort and a well-thought-out plan–more specifically, an employee training plan.
An employee training plan allows you to strategize how you’ll create training programs that will improve employee retention, team development and revenue in one document.
If it’s your first time creating one, it can seem overwhelming, but don’t worry. In this article, we will walk you through what is required to establish an employee training plan, as well as provide you with templates and more.
An employee training plan is a document that lays out a detailed training program tailored to a specific role, team or company. It explains your training objectives, methods, and tactics, as well as how you will execute and meet training expectations. This document is a working project that should be updated regularly to meet industry standards or company changes.
Watch this video to learn how to create an employee training program your employees will love.
A training plan for employees gives clear direction not just for the trainer but also for the managers who will assist or profit the most from the training's outcome. Yet despite how significant this document is, LinkedIn's 2020 Workplace Learning report found that 49% of talent developers agree that getting managers to prioritize learning is their number one challenge.
So if you need help convincing your manager or yourself that an employee training plan is a key to your success, here are four proven reasons why you need an employee training plan.
Roundtable Learning defines a “knowledge gap” as “the difference between the information an employee knows vs. what their organization needs them to know.” However, average employees find themselves with knowledge gaps more frequently than they’d like to admit, which can stunt employee development.
Most companies take employee knowledge gaps for granted when hiring or promoting. It’s a common assumption that because employees already have experience in the role or industry, they’re more likely to figure out the company’s needs and goals as they start taking on tasks. However, this is a formula for misunderstandings, unmet expectations, and poor employee integration.
As you lay out your employee training plan, here are some ways you can avoid knowledge gaps:
A well-planned corporate training program prepares employees for work expectations, projects and daily tasks, which increases work performance and productivity. Practical training increases independence, equipping employees with adequate knowledge to do their job without asking for help or the need for micro-managing.
A bonus is that companies that endorse training help cultivate an environment for change and growth. This helps employees become more agile when handling changes or challenges the company may encounter.
“The responsibility of learning has always been to help organizations navigate uncertainty and chaos in the world” - Linda Cai, Vice President of Talent Development, LinkedIn.
Training plans benefit both employees and employers. A Team Stage Employee Retention report stated that inadequate employee training accounts for 40% of resignations. On the other hand, the employee retention rate grows by 30–50% at companies with a complete training program.
When employees feel invested in by their employers, they’re more likely to stay and grow with the company. Employees are more likely to leave a company that withholds promotions or training and development because they believe it is easier to switch roles to acquire training elsewhere.
So it’s safe to say that having a corporate training plan and program in place is a proactive approach to keeping employees for longer. Having an employee training program template saves you time, resources and costs that would be otherwise used to find replacements or hiring externally.
An employee training plan can help companies to reassess and prepare for proper succession planning. Succession planning is the process of identifying key roles in your organization and determining how new or current employees will fill them if they become vacant.
Critical employees may inevitably either leave or get promoted. But without a succession plan, especially for leadership or management teams, your team’s productivity and projects can be negatively affected. Making an employee training plan for these important positions in your company can:
Ready to amp up your employee training? Watch this video to see how Visme's interactive features can help you achieve that.
Training plans are not always one-size-fits-all. So you must find what works best for your company's training needs or the employee's role. Below is a list of the most commonly used employee training plan examples and customizable templates to get you started on the right foot in terms of both content and design.
Employee onboarding isn’t as easy as it seems. It’s all about first impressions for both you and your new employee.
By creating an onboarding employee training plan for new hires, you can provide a crucial experience that fosters company talent and ensures employee retention. It ensures your new hire settles in quickly and becomes a valuable addition to your team. This new employee training plan template can also help prevent knowledge gaps for future tasks.
A product knowledge employee training plan is mainly for tech-centric companies that are introducing new products for sale or holding a heavy tech stack that needs to be used daily. This will help the trainer effectively map out a comprehensive training plan to provide employees with product knowledge.
As the name states, this type of training plan can be used for specific roles within your department. It can also be used for succession planning for significant company positions. With role-specific training, you’ll need to get feedback from employees currently in the role, industry standards and skills to keep it relevant.
Pro Tip: With Visme’s dynamic fields, you can easily update and customize your employee training plan from a single source to ensure that it’s updated and ready to be shared with your trainee in seconds.
In today’s climate, now more than ever, diversity training is an essential part of building a healthy work culture. This type of training shouldn’t be shied away from. In fact, most employees encourage it. According to a CNBC survey, 80% of respondents said they want to work for a company that values diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
By addressing issues related to biases, stereotypes, and discrimination, diversity training seeks to create a workplace where individuals from various ethnicities, genders, religions, sexual orientations, and abilities feel valued and appreciated.
Executive training, also known as leadership development, is a type of training that focuses on leadership training and development. In short, it's designed to enhance the skills and competencies of top-level executives and managers.
If you’ve noticed that your manager or supervisors are due for updated training on business challenges, driving growth and innovation within your organizations, you can use this type of training. Don’t forget that well-trained leaders can keep employees motivated and engaged.
Whether you have a physical office or a remote team, having a set of safety training plans for employees can promote a culture of safety and awareness. Safety training can range from topics such as fire safety, emergency response procedures, how to use protective equipment or even cybersecurity etiquette against virtual threats!
Strategy training can also be a section in your onboarding training as well, to give new employees safety measures they can take within their new workspace or environment.
Don’t forget you can edit this and other Visme templates to suit your needs. Swap out existing images with your own, choose from our extensive library of stock images or use Visme’s AI Image Generator to bring your perfect image to life.
Now you know training plan examples for employees. Let’s dive into developing a training plan template and what you should include in it.
Outlining your employee training plan details can vary based on your company’s culture, role and training goals. But here are a few items that every employee training plan should have.
Training goals are a north star. They exhibit the tools, methods, and assessments you should apply to your students to ensure a successful training session. Without a training goal, your training plan can be disjointed, inconsistent, or prove challenging to measure its success.
Turning your training goals into S.M.A.R.T. goals is always a good idea. S.M.A.R.T stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. This method helps you be more precise, intentional and mindful about how you’ll structure your training plan.
When creating an employee training plan template, take it a step further and ask your employees in training to share their training goals before starting the training session. Once training is done, you can discuss and gather feedback on how well this training met your goals.
Use this section to highlight the employee training strategies you'd like to implement. You can choose one training method or use a hybrid or series of training methods.
Your training materials should be engaging and informational. Avoid creating training material with large walls of text. Instead, incorporate visuals like video content, images and other design elements. Check out these data visualization tools to perfectly visualize your training content.
Check out how this training manual below blends beautiful color, visuals, icons and design to drive visual appeal.
We’ve got really exciting training manual templates in our library; go check them out.
Pro Tip: If you need help outlining the best training methods for your employee training plan, Try Visme’s AI Writer. It can generate strategies, training structures and so much more in a matter of seconds. Use it directly in your Visme editor as you edit your training templates.
So, how do you decide on a suitable training method for your employee training plan?
First, it’s all based on the number of resources available to you, including trainers, time, software, and training material. Lastly, the goal that you want to achieve with the training. Always remember that a training method and goal are always directly correlated with each other. You can’t have one without the other.
Once you’ve figured out how to answer the following above, you can decide if you’d like to include one or more of these training methods in your plan:
Here’s another critical piece of information to include in your internal training plan template.
Make a checklist of your learning goals in descending order of priority or based on their foundational structure (beginner to advanced). Try to avoid making this list in a silo. If possible, involve team members, HR or the supervisor who will work directly with this employee.
Pro Tip: Make an interactive checklist for your employees in training as well so they can keep track of their progress with analytics. You can accomplish this by using this Visme checklist template and customizing it to your needs.
Create a training timeline outlining how long it’ll take to complete this training. You can break down your timeline into hours or days. An estimated timeline would be the best option to leave room for error. For example, you’ll never know which trainees learn at a slow or fast pace if issues may arise during training content production or anything else.
Next, you'll need to state how you will test and assess your trainees. An assessment is given during and after training, whereas a test is done after the training is provided. When doing tests or assessments, let your trainees know beforehand so they can come as prepared as possible to get the best results.
Assessment and testing in training can be given in the form of a quiz, project, work evaluation or a combination of both. You don't necessarily need to test your employees after training, but it does help to learn how practical your employee training is and what areas need improvement or where employees may need more training.
Assemble an informative assessment for your training using this engaging report template.
Outline your training budget with the cost of learning materials, trainers and tools you'll need to execute your training successfully. These costs can be recurring or based on single purchases. Training budgets allow you to manage your spending on costs you'll encounter before, during or after training. The aim is to be as detailed as possible to find the best way to allocate company resources.
If you've already been doing employee training, add your ROI (Return on Investment) formula in your training budget section. It'll be helpful for your HR department, supervisor or leadership to see a justification for the cost of training.
After all, employee training is an investment. Like any investment, a corporation wants to know how training sessions will pay off in numbers, percentages, or dollars.
To calculate your training ROI formula, you'll need to add the total change in profits related to training/cost of training. Then convert the total into a percentage. If the percentage is (over) 100%, then you've made back your investment in training. If it's lower than 100%, then you still need to get back your return on investment, and you'll need to pivot.
Draft your training budget proposal and share it with management using this comprehensive template.
