Filling skills gaps in your organisation is no longer as simple as hiring someone capable.
A number of factors have combined to cause a significant jobs shortage, both here in the UK and in the US. This has not only caused issues filling key roles, but has also seen experienced personnel moving on for better terms – and businesses having to pay more to replace them.
What this increasingly means is that businesses are having to hire less experienced personnel and train them up, providing the experience and skills they’d usually be advertising for. But a lack of prior training experience often means that there are no processes in place, and no cohesive strategy for supporting and nurturing new talent.
While some people may have a natural aptitude for training, it isn’t something that should be undertaken without a plan, or with blind faith in the skills of an individual. Here then are just a few ideas of how you can improve your business training and mentorship programmes – and the skills every trainer and mentor needs to have to bring the best out of their students.
The value of workplace training
It’s always important for a business to demonstrate a path to career development, but rarely has it been so necessary. UK job openings outpaced unemployment for the first time in recorded history in May 2022, with similar figures being reported in the US. With living costs rising, and younger employees proving less loyal, staff turnover has also increased to its highest ever level. Businesses across industries are either finding that nobody is applying for roles, or that salaries and benefits are having to be raised to stay competitive.
As a result, training and personal development is becoming less of a perk, and more of a necessity. New employees are having to be trained to jump into roles with less prior experience than would normally be desirable. And elsewhere, existing employees are being eyed for progression where it otherwise might not have been considered. With younger employees often arriving with their own skill deficits, training can also be necessary to impart more general skills, as well as role-specific ones.
All of this presents a new challenge to businesses already struggling with rising costs. Designating one or more personnel to train or mentor a new hire may be ideal, but it will occupy a significant amount of their time. And while they may be experts in their field, they may not have the skills necessary to impart information in the best possible way. The result could be effort wasted by your senior employees, and a sense that a new hire is a lost cause, when it might be the teaching methods that are actually at fault.
Common issues with training
There are three common issues when conducting internal training. One is simply a lack of time to commit to it. Particularly in small businesses, the business owner or senior employees will often have a heap of existing responsibilities that they are unable to delegate. This means that scheduling training sessions is a careful balancing act, and one that often leads to more stress, impacting the quality of the work and the training.
Another is inconsistency. When a role requires training from multiple people, the standard, depth and style of that training may differ dramatically, as may the time you can spend with each person. Sometimes this may include practical experience, but other times it might not. This can not only lead to an inconsistent picture of the role, with knowledge gaps that could leave the employee exposed, but also potential safety issues.
The third issue is resources. Apart from the resource cost of diverting personnel into training, the training process often requires resources. Again, small businesses in particular may not have recorded processes for everything they do, and the materials needed to perform the role may not be written for the layman. Translating these documents or creating new resources to train and support new hires can be a challenging and labour-intensive process.
How to improve employee training
There are a variety of ways that you can improve employee training, but training will always have two key tenets: people and processes. Quality training relies on individuals who can deliver the training in a way that nurtures talent, and best communicates what you need to get across. However, it’s equally important that they have a process for doing this, and that the standard and content of training does not differ between trainers.
The initial basis for training might be training materials, such as putting a PDF or other resources together outlining the fundamentals of a given role. As many roles will require a prior qualification, this should cover everything that employees won’t already be trained in, but referring to and within the context of that prior knowledge. These materials can then be used by trainers as a guide on what to cover, allowing them to fill in the gaps with their own knowledge and experience. These materials should also include any recurrent processes, and are a good excuse to formalise anything that isn’t performed consistently.
Next, you should consider investing in training for your trainers. A Train the Trainer course imparts not just the ability to set objectives and impart knowledge, but the ability to assess the people who are being trained, and how receptive they are to different methods. Good training isn’t just about getting across all of the right information, but doing so in a way that can be easily understood, and having the learners prove that they can apply that knowledge in a real-world setting.
Our Coaching and Mentoring for Managers course can also instil these skills throughout your organisation. As well as one-off or periodic training sessions, this course can increase opportunities for learning by empowering managers to deliver ongoing training and mentorship. This not only helps to reaffirm knowledge for existing employees, but also to ease new employees into the organisation, all without having an outsized impact on the manager’s productivity.
And finally..
You may also look to improve the quality of your applicants, reducing the need for training, or the amount you have to do. Working on your company culture and image can help to achieve this – although perhaps counter-intuitively, the availability of training may be a part of this.
Progression should be part of a positive culture for employees, rather than an emergency measure. It should support not only the development of skills, but also of responsibilities, personal growth, and advancement within the organisation. You should also ensure that your business is working towards greater goals than simply making more money, as younger employees in particular see social responsibility as a sign of a career worth committing to.
The merits of training should be obvious, but particularly when it comes to soft skills, the benefits can be obtuse or indirect enough that some businesses feel they can do without it. At a time of economic difficulties, where even marginal gains can make a difference, improving and expanding your training could make a significant difference – both to the quality of your employees work, and of the applicants you attract.
