Every company wants to be successful in their business. Hence, big or small scale organizations must understand that organizational training is as essential as a long-term investment for the growth and welfare of the company.
However, US labor statistics unfortunately show that in 2018, companies with less than a hundred employees spend only 12 minutes of manager training every 6 months while worse in institutions that hold 100 to 500 employees which provide just 6 minutes for this endeavor. Furthermore, research commissioned by Middlesex University for Work Based Learning found 74% out of 4,300 workers as subjects felt that they weren’t reaching their full potential in their work due to lack of developmental opportunities.
Understanding the importance of organizational training is imperative in ensuring a successful business. To appreciate even more the benefits of organizational training, check out the different types of organizational training and their benefits, as well as the different ways you can promote the appreciation for organizational training within your company.
Types of Organizational Training
There are different types of organizational training. In this article, you will learn the three types of organizational training in terms of size or scope. These are the following: individual-individual training, group training, inter-organizational training.
How does each type of training differ from the others?
Individual-Individual Training
Well, this is the smallest unit in the realm of the learning community. This is when an individual up-skill or acquire new skills and ideas that would eventually improve his performance and productivity.
For this type of organization training to be beneficial, the employee who has gained the required knowledge and skills must pass these learnings to a colleague. Or else, that skill stays with the worker.
If the employee then moves to another company, the wisdom and knowledge move with them, and the organization’s growth will be stagnant.
Group Training
Group training refers to instances when skills and knowledge can be acquired through social adaptation or also known as “social-psychological awareness.”
Basically, the concept behind group training is that team members can learn new skills faster and better when they spend most of their time together.
This may simply mean that each individual perceives themselves as part of the group and adjusts their behavior to conform to the prevailing norms and values in a given social group, team, or even society. Learning then from each other is contagious because the victory of one is the victory of the group and the failure of one will be the failure of the group
Inter-Organizational Training
Inter-organizational training is the expanded type of organizational training, and it’s prevalent in franchises or large companies with multiple locations.
For instance, some smaller-scale franchises would send an employee as a trainee to the head organization to study the franchise business model and learn some strategies, including customer service, marketing strategies, and many others.
Benefits of Effective Organizational Training
Organizational training ensures institutional knowledge, encourages active collaboration, and innovates processes. Depending on the specific goals of a training program, your organization can benefit and progress as one, across the board.
To dig further into why organizational training is important to any institution, take a look at how your company is doing in terms of valuing institutional knowledge, collaboration, and innovation.
Ensuring Institutional Knowledge Transfer
Yes, knowledge can be diffused from the individual and into the organization through effective organizational training.
Learning transfer is difficult and challenging because human beings are complex and diverse. It is unpredictable how each of them will respond to your program. One method that interests and is understood by one learner might be too hard and challenging for another learner. Also, one may comprehend an idea very well during the training, however, may not be able to apply what he learned to solve a real problem.
As a training coach and a course creator, you have to ensure a comprehensive learning experience. Let us keep in mind that learning does not begin and cease with the training session. You have to be mindful of all the phases of learning transfer: before, during, and after the training.
Think of organizational training as a comprehensive knowledge structure of the institution where managers and staff must learn something new. They share that knowledge within the organization by applying it to their work. And this can be used to improve their practices. The knowledge is translated into actions and transferred out of the individual community and into the organizational community as a whole. This is how organizations can adapt to a changing environment and can thrive in the long run.
Encouraging Active Collaboration
Even before the training (which is still part of the training), you could create an active collaboration between the administration and the staff.
From assessing, analyzing, identifying the purpose of the training, aligning outcomes with the business goals, and tasks to planning the training course will encourage active collaboration because of the engagement. With an engaging workplace, employees will choose to grab opportunities to help the institution identify the existing problems and come up with solutions.
Employees will eventually grab the opportunities to upskill, and therefore improve their performance. If you want employees to contribute to your organization’s vision and mission, then investing in their skill competencies will help them in contributing value to your concern.
Moreover, It is mutually beneficial to the company and employees if the training is aligned with their work and focused skills. This would keep employees engaged and satisfied. And at the same time improve their job performance.
Innovating Processes
Delivering meaningful corporate training will innovate processes from the administration, who is investing and manages and, from those who are really on the floor and facing the challenges.
In fact, it is expected in organizational training outcomes that a framework will be formulated for identifying and organizing what is and what is not essential. This would also suggest systems for making the way you do things easy and orderly. And most of the time the program will help the manager or staff create personal and group action plans for getting and staying organized.
Therefore, effective organizational training could be a catalyst for change in your organization.
How to Promote Organizational Training
Unless the members of an organization appreciate the value of organizational training, it will be very challenging to conduct it.
The key here is to make sure that your objectives are clear and you devise strategies to promote organizational training across all departments concerned. You can do it by initiating a campaign, assimilating a story and a theme, and meeting the learners.
Initiate a Campaign
Think like a marketer. Answer the following questions:
- What is your implementation strategy?
- How will you sell or promote the program to the target learners?
- How will you tell your mentees that this training matters and how will it be relevant to them?
These questions should guide you through identifying the key selling points of your training program. If your target trainees can resonate with your program, it should not be too difficult to promote the program among them.
Assimilate a Story and a Theme
If you have a promotional campaign in place and you want to connect the entire training experience together, then one way to do this is by using a story and a theme.
Actually, the most powerful and impactful campaigns are built from the heart. Thus, they are powerful and sustainable because their foundations are stronger and are built out of an authentic spirit and a real story. In this ever-changing society, a story sets up a reason why you are engaged.
For example; a story of conflict and resolution.
Meet the Trainees
Motivate your learners by meeting them or at least some of them before the training. Tell them about the significance of the training like how the learning outcomes will help meet the company’s business goals and how they can advance along their career paths with the training and skill set they will acquire.
Leaders, meanwhile, should realize the importance of the training and recognize how they can facilitate through-out the learning process of their staff and create practice opportunities to apply what they have learned
