Most people already know that it is wise to invest in employee development. Providing quality learning experiences for your employees benefits your organization and employees in many ways. 76% of employees are currently looking for opportunities for career growth and development (1). Another 68% of employees reported that employee development is a company’s most important policy (1).
Quality training can also have a significant impact on a company’s profits. In fact, it has been found that companies who successfully invest in employee training can see up to 24% increase in revenue (2).
However, many organizations invest in employee development programs and never see these kinds of results. There are many reasons training may be ineffective, but one of the most common mistakes organizations make is to not take into consideration how their learning objectives align with the company’s larger goals.
The most successful employee training programs are created to solve business problems. They use human capital transformation as a way to overcome some of their toughest challenges.
A Deloitte global study recently described human capital transformation as an approach that helps companies define, structure and realize their human capital management strategy by focusing on the development and delivery of services that target their most important assets, employees.
In other words, human capital transformation is a strategy where companies invest and focus on creating learning experiences to improve employee skill and productivity. This is a win win for everyone.
This strategy is even more effective when a company’s learning objectives are aligned with the organizations larger goals.
Creating Meaningful Learning Experiences that Drive Change
Creating great learning experiences starts with identifying the goals you would like to achieve and the performance gaps that are keeping your organization from reaching them. Different employee roles play different parts in attaining larger organizational goals so the obstacles should be broken down for different departments and specific jobs.
For example, your company may decide that they want to focus on improving the brands reputation to increase customer loyalty. This can be achieved by improving customer experiences. You would then need to analyze ways the customer experiences can be improved.
You may find that your sales team needs more industry knowledge and product knowledge training. Or your customer service representatives may need soft skills training to increase their first call resolution rates.
Once you identify the key obstacles that need to be changed, you can then develop your key learning objectives around them. These learning objectives and help your employees understand why the new skills they’re learning are important to achieving the company’s goals.
The key learning objectives should be used to design engaging employee experiences. These learning experiences will equip employees with the skills they will need to improve their performance and boost productivity.
Conclusion
The achievement of your organizations objectives is directly related to the performance of its employees. Designing your training programs to solve your business challenges will ensure that your employees have the skills they need. They will also have a better understanding of how their abilities contribute to the company’s success.
The misalignment of business strategy and learning objectives is a missed opportunity to propel your business forward and often results in money wasted on ineffective training initiatives. Studies have found that only 12% of employees feel they can apply the skills they have learned in training on the job (3).
The most engaging learning programs that use quality management systems, games and interactive software applications can still be ineffective without the proper alignment of business and learning strategies.
Human resources and hr functions have changed. Learning and development is no longer a separate part of the business, but an essential component of using human capital transformation to achieve larger business goals. Designing learning experiences to solve business challenges is essential to creating learning and development programs that have a positive impact on your organization.
To learn more about how to create learning experiences that get results and check out the eBook Creating Learning Experiences.
