You don’t necessarily need to enrol your existing workers on an external course to enable them to upgrade their skills – it might be possible for all the training they require to take place on your own site. And the effective training of personnel has long been associated with a broad range of benefits, including better-quality work, heightened productivity, enhanced staff morale and motivation, and your business being better placed to adapt to ongoing change to power its growth.
However, simply deciding to go ahead with workplace training, doesn’t mean it will automatically be successful. For evidence of that, you would only need to look to the results of polls like this one reported by People Management in 2019, when about seven in 10 respondents claimed that workplace training content was not always engaging or exciting.
So, what options do you have for putting in place workplace learning that is as engaging as it is effective at upgrading the skills you need your personnel to have? Here are some of the possibilities.
Hands-on training
While we’re considering how to make workplace learning engaging, we think you’d struggle to do better than placing a big emphasis on “learning by doing”. It is a form of learning that enables the employee being trained to directly tackle a particular problem in a controlled environment, with a trainer close by to correct and help them to accomplish the given task.
You might be able to design your own mode of hands-on training for your workplace, or you may prefer bringing in an external tutor; regardless, this can be an excellent method for embedding what your staff need to learn. It can, however, be a pricier and more time-consuming training option than some of the alternatives.
Government apprenticeships
Apprenticeships have arguably long been underrated for the real-world value they can bring to employers. As an organisation, taking on an apprentice allows you to recruit a motivated new staffer who will become qualified in line with your needs.
The apprentice themselves will become immersed in your workplace over the course of their training, so they will soon be familiar with the culture and nuances of how your firm operates.
Apprentices are well-trained and highly adaptable staff. Meanwhile, the sheer range of gov apprenticeships available – including via TCHC and in such fields as accounting, IT, digital and business support – makes it easier to ensure your new team member will have exactly the skills you require them to have.
Co-working projects
Not everything about how you help your employees to build on their existing skill set needs to be centred on the most formalised training courses. You might like the idea, for instance, of getting team members to work together on a project that could also help them to bolster their self-confidence, communication and teamwork skills.
Putting into motion such a co-working project, however, will probably necessitate you letting go of any tendency to micromanage your staff, placing your trust in them to assume responsibility for the project. The project in question could be an assignment for a client, the launch of a new product or service, or even something related to your company culture. Regardless – give your staff the freedom to approach the project as they wish by a particular deadline, and they will have maximum scope to get creative and innovative. That, in turn, could benefit your business in the long run.
Would you like to learn more about the various training programmes we make available to employers here at TCHC? If so, please feel free to browse our website, or to give us a call on 01923 698430 for more suitably tailored advice and guidance.
