Just like the smaller office space your team moved out of a few years ago or the single printer the company was using when you just started out, you might have realized that your current training and development programs haven’t quite kept up with how (or where) your company is growing. It’s true that the only constant is change, and businesses trying to maintain a foothold in competitive markets need to be acutely aware of how effective their training is—especially when it’s time for an update that reflects new missions, values, or workforces.
At AllenComm, we’ve had the opportunity to help companies in different industries re-evaluate, retool, and relaunch their training initiatives. Before we step in to help, however, here are four questions we think you should ask to see if you’ve officially outgrown your training.
Are You Still Using Flash?
Like the dinosaurs, the dodo, and the Macarena, Flash’s time in the sun has come and gone. HTML5, with its robust security features and nearly analogous adoption across web browsers, platforms, and devices, is a much more powerful and easier tool for developers to use. Still using an older online training program that was developed in Flash? Most browsers and communication technology have stopped supporting it. In fact, Adobe has stated it will officially end support for its once hearty web plug-in in 2020. AllenComm has developed its own cloud-based design platform called DesignLab, which uses HTML5 to ensure your training can be created, maintained, and easily updated across multiple platforms.
Is Your Workforce Changing?
Are you starting to see a shift in age, skill level, or other demographics across your employee workforce? If so, updating your training ensures it stays relevant to the new faces that have entered your company. Effective training needs to not only provide the information your employees need to make a difference in day-to-day operations, but it also needs to be designed, offered, and presented in a way that makes sense to your audience. Make sure your training speaks a language everyone can understand and utilizes current learning styles. Your employees will retain more of what you’re trying to teach them.
Has Workplace Culture Changed Dramatically?
The business landscape is changing faster as new communication strategies and technologies are developed and utilized. As younger workers with different skill sets start to become the face of your company, it’s certain that your company culture has had to shift to appeal to a different demographic. The influx of Millennials in the workforce, the changing cultural and global business stage, and recent social movements have all attributed to a shift in company culture and business trends. If your company is still utilizing training that speaks to cultural norms of a bygone business world, it’s time to update your training and put a fresh face on how your employees think you see the world.
Has Other Training Uncovered a Weak Spot?
Continually training and developing your workforce helps you to understand what knowledge gaps exist and how your training might not be addressing these gaps. Providing feedback on what concepts learners have a grasp on as well as how stakeholders could adjust training to address and resolve any weak links in proficiency means having a clear understanding of your learning objectives. Using data from existing trainings is a great place to start. That way, you can use your defined learning objectives to understand whether a potential learning opportunity exists for your team.