Employee Training

What exactly is Employee Training? Employee training and learning are the method of strategically investing time, effort, and resources in the development of business personnel. In short, employee development is all about learning: from information technology to interpersonal skills, from taskshadowing to real world experience, and from learning new approaches to existing processes. The end result is improved quality of service, a boost in productivity, and increased profitability. But how can you ensure that your employees are receiving the education that they need?

There are several ways of ensuring that your employees receive the development programs that they need. You can start by asking your employees what skills or talents they may have that you can use to improve your business. For instance, if you run an insurance agency, you may find that your employees know a lot about underwriting but very little about marketing or customer service. If you ask them to develop marketing skills, or customer service skills, they'll be happy to do it. This is because marketing and customer service are core business functions, which can easily be overworked.

You can also put employees to the test. Set up a mock call center for a week, with a number of topics that can be related to the company's website. Have each employee call in and perform a skills training skills test, from speaking to texting. The better that they do, the more likely you are to save money on hiring and developing in-house employees.

One of the biggest mistakes that companies make is not putting their best people to work. If you're relying on in-house employees to handle various functions, like marketing and customer service, then you may as well be outsourcing these functions. It can cost you a lot of money to train each employee in different types of skills. If you have a call center, then you can train your employees in basic computer skills, or even on how to deal with different types of customers. You'll pay more, but you'll have better results.

Training an in-house IT person is another mistake that companies make. Although this person might be highly trained, there's always a chance that he or she will make a mistake. An in-house tech might not be as familiar with the latest software programs as a technical specialist who works for an outside company. This person might also be less familiar with what is acceptable in the office environment compared to what would be acceptable outside.