By Jonathan Monterecy, VP, Training, Astonish
In the digital age, we sometimes forget about the people behind our technology. With the buzz surrounding new innovations designed to make our businesses run smoothly, we may neglect the people who actually run them. Now, more than ever, setting goals and evaluating employee performance is critical to ensuring the success of our latest technologies, while encouraging them to continue to innovate. The key to employee training success in the digital age involves combining traditional and digital training strategies to maximize the power of our employees and our technology. But why is this training essential? How can we do it effectively, and how do we know it is working?
Studies have shown the value well-planned and evaluated employee training can bring to a company. Employees with excellent training opportunities are less likely to leave a company than those with few training opportunities, according to a Harris Interactive poll. In addition to reducing turnover, workforce training saves companies money. A study by the Center for American Progress found that replacing an employee can cost one-fifth of the former employee’s salary. To avoid experiencing these losses, and to enact an effective training plan that allows company leadership to plan and evaluate employee performance, companies should consider the following:
What training strategy works best for our company or agency?
Training is not one-size-fits-all. The type of training that fits your company’s or agency’s needs depends on your business model and employees. If you’re training your employees in digital marketing tools and they already have a basic understanding of SEO and social media, they may not need as much hands-on training as those with no experience using these technologies. Explore all options, from automated, self-taught modular training, which uses an online platform to walk employees through the training process, to live video training or on-site training.
How can we improve our existing training strategy?
Reworking your training strategy is like going to the gym. You may dread it, but, in the long run, your company looks better and it pays off. But sometimes you need that screaming personal trainer getting in your face, pointing out your flaws and motivating you to change, which is where on-site training with an outside expert comes in. The expert doesn’t work for your company and, like a trainer, has no qualms about telling you what you are doing well and what you need to work on. You may notice some of your organization’s flaws, but an outsider will have a fresh perspective. This expert can even tell you how your employees and technology can work together to enhance efficiency.
How can we combine traditional employee training with digital employee training?
Try sending an anonymous online survey to your employees asking them what they like and don’t like about the company’s employee training. Then, present their feedback to an outside expert who can come on-site and offer training tailored to the needs and wishes of employees. Making training as engaging and customized as possible helps employees take it seriously. By incorporating technology into the training process, you also are streamlining the process and making training more efficient, while still showing concern for the needs of individual employees.
How can we set effective goals for our employee training?
Find out what your employees hope to get out of their training. Use this feedback to develop goals and objectives for your revamped training efforts, but make sure you understand the difference between goals and objectives. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, goals are general, abstract, and strategic statements set by top executives. They provide long-range direction for your training efforts. For example, a goal could be training your employees in how to write an effective, search-engine-optimized blog post for the company blog. Objectives are specific and measurable. They are tactical and set by managers to make sure goals are accomplished. Because they are more specific, objectives also need to be more realistic than goals. For this particular goal, an objective could be having each employee draft at least one blog post for the company blog within a month of their training, leading to an increase of 10 percent in company blog traffic one year after their training.
How can we evaluate employee performance to ensure we have met our goals and objectives?
At the end of your training program, reevaluate your employees. Conduct another survey or bring in an outside expert to help you determine if you achieved your goals and objectives. Test your employees on their new skill sets, and hold them accountable for using the knowledge they gained from their training session. Most importantly, do not let your employees’ feedback go to waste—use it to reshape future training sessions. Your employees need to know their voices have been heard.
After we implement a training plan and evaluate our employees, what’s next?
Planning and evaluating are constantly evolving processes. The way you plan and evaluate training sessions will change as your employees’ knowledge and skill sets evolve. What should never change is your commitment to your employees and to a continuous training program. Technology can help you do this, but remember that you need a combination of technology and manpower to be effective. You can have all of the latest technology at your fingertips, but if your employees don’t know how to use it, you lose all the benefits.
Jonathan Monterecy is the VP of Training at Astonish, a digital marketing solution for insurance agencies. Before working with Astonish in 2009, Monterecy was the manager of Production and Technology for digital marketing firm BZ Results, where he directed customer service and managed special projects, in addition to assisting with sales and marketing. He received his Bachelor’s in marketing and communications from Bryant University. Monterecy can be reached at jmonterecy@astonish.com.
