Employee Training: 8 Tactics Your Company Can Put Into Action

Your employee training sessions are only as boring as you let them be.

We’ve all been in a training session that lasted too long and left us feeling like we didn’t learn enough. You probably have a few memories of your own lackluster employee training sessions featuring lukewarm coffee and a dimly lit conference room. And while employee training might have a bad rep for being dull, it's a necessary part of any talent management strategy.

The problem with employee training is that people don’t understand the many ways they can innovate. One way to make them better it to turn to corporate learning management systems (CLMS) to assist in the process. These tools can organize and track efforts to train employees, while also managing specific training programs for onboarding and development. 

In addition to being armed with proper software, there are plenty of ways to flip your employee training on its head and engage your staff in new ways.

What is employee training?

Employee training is a program or initiative that helps your staff acquire new or improve existing knowledge or skills that pertain to their current role within the organization. These can include both hard and soft skills.

This training usually starts early on within their role, usually during onboarding, and should continue throughout the time the individual is within that role. With new hires, employee training should focus on competency. From there, productivity and employee performance become the main focus after employees achieve base competency levels of tasks within their role.

Focusing on employee training is incredibly important for organizations across all industries. The benefits of having a thorough employee training program can lead to:

• An increase in employee retention: Employees are more likely to remain with an organization for extended periods if their employer invests in learning and development opportunities.
• Attracting top talent for open roles: Job seekers often prioritize learning opportunities when searching for new jobs. Top talent may pass you up for a competitor if your organization doesn't offer a training program.
• An increase in long-term profit for the company: Employing team members with all the necessary skills for their role ensures they are more productive and efficient. This productivity and efficiency can mean someone is better at their job and earning revenue for the organization.

Employee training vs. employee development

Companies often confuse employee training with employee development, but the two have important differences.

Employee training focuses on creating a program to help employees learn new skills or gain specific knowledge to improve their performance regarding their current role or position. 

Employee development is broader, focusing on employee growth and future performance within the organization instead of their current role. For instance, if an employee has their eye on becoming a manager, they should take part in a development program for leadership and management skills.

8 employee training ideas to try

The key to creating an engaging employee training program is to focus on the growth opportunities they offer your team. It may take some time to restrategize your current employee training program, but the time and effort are worth the payoff.

We’ve sourced advice from professionals across industries and career fields for their best tips and tricks for improving employee training. Here are the best training and development ideas to consider implementing at your own organization.

1. Use technology to your advantage

“We use technology throughout our training and new hire onboarding process. The program we currently use has several courses categorized by topic (company values, client interactions, and our company software). We cover the topics in a way that is beneficial for all types of learners including visual, audio, reading/writing, and kinesthetic.

Using a training management software gives us access to great resources like video tutorials and audio files of how to interact with a client via phone. With each video tutorial, there is a reading segment covering the main points of the video to reiterate the content covered and to allow employees to write down the information at their own pace.

I've worked for numerous companies that had little to no training and it was awful. I wasted so much time trying to learn the ropes on my own. Training management software helps avoid all of that and gives our employees more time to learn their job and start getting better at it.”

– Jessie Breheim, Marketing Manager at LUMASearch

2. Match your high performers with new employees

“The best way to onboard a new employee is simply to have them work with the department supervisor or high-performing employee side-by-side for a few days. The supervisor can help them get situated, walk them through common tasks and projects, and show the new staff member how someone experienced does their job.

"This personal approach lets the new team member ask questions at their own pace and see the steps in action."

Nate Masterson
HR Manager, Maple Holistics

Although larger training programs are more cost and time-efficient for a company, sometimes they’re not enough. Pamphlets and presentations will bore employees so that they barely process the information being delivered to them.

People are much less likely to ask clarification questions when they are in a large group, so the new staff members will likely start getting lost but will be too embarrassed to ask for help. That’s why we’ve put such a focus on mentorship and employee-run training.”

– Nate Masterson, HR Manager for Maple Holistics

3. Create excitement about a “boring” training topic

“One of the best ways to capture your employee’s attention is by incentivizing training and practice. In my own personal opinion, there are three incentives that motivate most employees - money, time off work, and free food.

If you’re having a training session that involves your employees, turn it into an experience they can get excited about. Create a half-day session for the training with a catered lunch where employees get the other half of the day off as an incentive for being in attendance.

The real fun begins when the training is over. You can continue rewarding employees for implementing what they learned. An example could be employees who change their password every 90 days without you having to ask them to receive a gift card or a free lunch.

We recently had a security awareness training which I believe is critically important for employees, but we recognized the topic is incredibly dry. We decided to rework it into something exciting for our employees and it turned out great!”

– Brandon Schroth, Digital Manager at Gillware

4. Take your training outside the office

“Recently I visited San Francisco to participate in the training symposium my company organized. The training took us 7,000 miles away from our office where we learned about the best practices in content marketing and got introduced to advanced techniques. But what made this training remarkable were the outdoors activities organized for the participants. It turned into an unforgettable experience combined with breathtaking moments in nature.

Getting to enjoy the wondrous scenery of San Francisco Bay – while sailing and hiking – in a company full of smart, perceptive, and fun people as a part of the company's training program, will stick as a pleasurable memory for a long time.

"My tip for successful staff training is: make your training memorable. Plan the free-time activities as carefully as the training sessions."

Ana Casic
Media Relations Coordinator, TalentLMS

 That’s how you’ll get not just to instill knowledge into participant’s minds, but also caring and gratitude into their attitude towards the company. When they return to their daily tasks, even when they don’t remember or don't know how to do something, they’ll be motivated to invest the effort to find the answers by themselves and do the best job they can.”

– Ana Casic, Media Relations Coordinator at TalentLMS

5. Understand that people learn things differently

“Now more than ever, it's critical to understand the best learning methods for your workforce prior to rolling out any program. Each generation has a preference, whether it be hands-on, online, or self-directed on both topic and timing.

When providing skills training that is applicable to all employees, such as communication, change management, or conflict resolution, offering the training at various times over multiple sessions can be very effective. When employees aren't forced into a schedule that can create conflict with other responsibilities, they are better able to focus. We've also offered training after-hours, happy-hour style, to pull in more employees and offer a casual approach - great for those that are nervous about attending any training!

When employees feel they have a choice over the training they receive, they are more likely to participate. Sending surveys with topics for upcoming training can be very effective. Identify the most popular ones and work them into a training schedule. This is also a good way to better understand what the employees feel is needed for training, rather than making arbitrary decisions.”

– Richard Pummell, Human Resources Lead at Develop Intelligence

6. Use stories to show your employees the value

“Too often training is about providing content for people to use in their jobs but without the stories and examples, people can use to relate it to their jobs. 

"My training success tip is to include specific stories of how to use the tools from training in your day-to-day job."

Michael Arnold
Coach and Trainer, The John Maxwell Team

If you can relate the stories to actual situations and problems the people see in their daily jobs, it will help them to better understand and use the training tools. I always use stories in all of my training and have worked to improve my storytelling to further improve my training.”

– Michael Arnold, Coach and Trainer at The John Maxwell Team

7. Expand your idea of what employee training looks like

“Training doesn’t stop once your employees are onboarded. Keep the education going by implementing a mentorship program. This will help keep things fresh for even your most experienced employees.

Along with being a great way to train, a mentorship program will also help develop strong relationships between your new and existing employees, which will help create a better work environment and a strong company culture!”

– Brian Kelley, Vice-President of Bellwether Community Credit Union

8. Hire the professionals to come train your staff

“We consider staff training one of the most crucial elements in our employees' development, so a training budget is one of the major perks we provide with a job offer.

We are a technological startup and we’re always looking to train our staff to become better at what they do. 

"To do that, we seek industry experts from around the world to train our staff. Instead of waiting for local training or seminars to open up, we invest in unique opportunities elsewhere."

Nina Krol
Community Manager, Zety

Let's say we need to upskill our search engine optimization (SEO) team, we seek a world-class SEO expert and hire them to come on-sight to train our staff. Yes, it can get quite expensive but it’s totally worth it. Our team gets to meet with the best people in the field and learn about something on their time, about the topics they want.”

– Nina Krol, Community Manager at Zety

Learn, baby, learn!

Now that you know some expert advice on employee training, it’s time to make it your own. Take these ideas from our industry leaders and breathe new life into your employee training plan.

Give your team the opportunity to harness even more skills when you implement an employee development strategy.

This article was originally published in 2021. It has been updated with new information.