An Employer's Guide to the Different Types of Workplace Training
Did you know that companies that offer comprehensive workplace training earn 218% higher income per employee? Or that these same companies have a 24% higher profit margin than companies who don't spend money on training? Or that for 70% of employees, job-related training and development is a significant deciding factor in whether or not to stay at a job?
One way or another, your team needs great workplace training.
Not sure where to begin? Here's a look at some of the common types of workplace training and what they can do to strengthen your team.
What is Workplace Training?
Think of workplace training as school on the job. It's a chance to learn something new—except unlike high school biology or English class, workplace training is targeted to the workplace.
Workplace training is a type of targeted learning that allows employees to gain the knowledge and skills they need to excel in their jobs while contributing meaningfully to their organization. What that means depends on your workplace and what matters to your managers.
For example, workplace training could be skill-specific, such as a warehouse worker taking a forklift certification training. However, training can also focus on general competencies that serve a variety of workplaces, such as workplace sensitivity training.
Why Workplace Training Courses are Important
Why is workplace training so important for your team? To put it simply, your team works better when they have the tools to excel.
From a purely practical perspective, training employees (and refreshing training for experienced employees) reduces the risk of potential job errors. And because employees know what they're doing and feel supported in their work, it's also a boost to employee morale.
From a public relations side, a strong workplace training program bolsters your reputation and your appeal to potential new hires. Gone are the days of jumping in off the deep end—employees are demanding more and better training from their workplaces, in keeping with the new worker mentality that their work should be an opportunity to grow.
That also pays off for the employees you already have. Workplaces with a learning culture have been shown to have a 30% to 50% higher retention rate than workplaces with weak training programs.
What Employee Training Can Teach
When the rubber hits the road, what can employee training actually teach? In basic terms, training can be split into two learning categories: hard skills and soft skills. Training frequency is also highly workplace-specific and depends on what skills you're trying to teach.
Hard Skills
Hard skills are a group of skills required to complete a job successfully. These are typically job-specific and listed in the job description and can include everything from job-specific expertise to specialized skills that the typical person in that position would know. In some industries, employers will test an employee's hard skills as part of the interview process to ensure they know what their resume claims.
Some hard skills in high demand in 2021 include:
Artificial intelligence
Blockchain
Business analysis
Cloud computing
UX design
Video production
Training hard skills in your employees is incredibly helpful for discerning employers. Employees get hard skills from a lot of places—college courses, certification programs, and short-term training, to name a few. But if you train hard skills on the job, you can ensure that employees know how to do a task exactly the way you want it done, allowing for greater quality control and consistency across your organization.
Plus, if you hire employees with a basic set of hard skills, workplace training gives you the chance to add more specialized hard skills for an even stronger employee.
Soft Skills
Soft skills don't get as much love as hard skills, but they're just as critical to a successful employee. Soft skills are basically the combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, emotional intelligence, and attitudes that allow people to navigate their environment and work well with others.
Some common examples of soft skills include:
Adaptability
Communication
Conflict resolution
Creative thinking
Critical thinking
Dependability
Motivation
Networking
Problem-solving
Teamwork
Time management
It's one thing to have the technical skills to complete your job, like entering data into a database or operating a machine. It's another thing entirely to have the personal skills required to advance in your career. Soft skills fall into the latter category, and by integrating them into workplace training, employers can create stronger, more productive teams.
Types of Workplace Training for Employees
As you can see, it's not so much a question of what workplace training is out there as what you want to achieve. There's workplace training for pretty much anything. The real question is: what do you want to train? What do your employees need the most?
Here's a look at some of the most common types of workplace training seen across industries.
Orientation
Job orientation is one of the most widespread forms of workplace training. This is when you provide all the organizational information that a new employee needs to prepare for their role at your company. Think of it as setting the stage for success with each new hire.
Orientation can be formal or informal, but either way, it's always a one-time process, usually conducted during an employee's first week on the job. Common topics include:
Company mission and values
Company culture
Organizational structure
Corporate policies
Administrative procedures
New-hire paperwork
Benefits plans
Without successful orientation, you won't have a smooth new-hire transition period, which is why this type of training is the most common one on the list.
Onboarding
While onboarding and orientation are often used interchangeably, they're actually two different things. Orientation is when you introduce new employees to the collective organization. Onboarding is when you integrate employees into their new department. This is reflected in the time dedicated to each—orientation is typically a one or two-day process, while onboarding can stretch as long as several weeks. That's because orientation is part of the larger onboarding process.
For this reason, onboarding training is more in-depth than orientation. This is when an employee might work with their supervisor and department head to create a 90-day training plan unique to their learning needs. It's also when employees sit down with managers to clarify expectations and job priorities.
During onboarding, managers will begin the work of teaching an employee how to do their job. For example, if an employee's job requires the use of a proprietary database, managers will train employees to use it during the onboarding process. Or, if an employee has to meet certain regular deadlines for recurring assignments, managers will walk them through how they expect those assignments to be completed.
Compliance and Safety
Another common type of training is safety training, a.k.a. compliance training. Compliance is often integrated into onboarding, but unlike onboarding, compliance training is refreshed regularly throughout the employee's career with the company.
Safety and compliance training has two components: industry-specific compliance and company-specific compliance. For example, safety training might cover safety compliance standards for your industry, but it will also cover company policies regarding safety best practices.
Because safety is an ongoing process, you'll do this particular training over and over again. Even employees who already have safety training and know your best practices can benefit from regular refresher courses.
Technical Training
Every industry has its own unique library of tools, techniques, and proprietary technology, and the library only grows over time. Technical training is your opportunity to train employees in those skills and techniques.
Because technical training focuses on industry-specific skills, it often coincides with hard skills training. This is when you teach your employees the skills to do their jobs right. That also means that technical training often depends on the company in question. For one company, it might involve computer software. For another, it might mean learning how to operate a machine. Some companies get through technical training in a presentation, while others use multi-step courses.
Soft Skills Training
You may hear job skills training referenced under a number of other monikers—diversity training, business etiquette, conflict resolution, teamwork workshops, you name it. But the goal is always the same: teaching your employees the social skills necessary to do well in their jobs.
Many jobs require the same soft skills, from time management to communication. Which ones you choose to emphasize depend on your priorities as a company and what you feel your teams need the most. For example, teams in fast-paced projects need time management, while teams balancing multiple priorities might need communication first.
The Best Workplace Training for Your Whole Team
Workplace training is more than just a presentation. It's a chance to build a better team and a more successful company. So if you're ready to invest in your business future, we're ready to help, with full-length courses covering essential workplace soft skills. Every course contains multiple video lessons so that your team can immerse themselves in learning and come out the other side knowing how to apply what they've learned.
Ready to get started? Make sure to check out our pricing options and sign up today!
