How to Create an Employee Training Plan (With Examples)

Without further ado, here are the key steps to implement training plans that truly impact your operations and motivate your teams.

To create relevant training plans for your teams, start with a skills assessment within your company.

This will allow you to target actions by department or team and determine which training needs are most urgent to ensure organizational efficiency and employee productivity.

This process takes time and effort. You may need to spread the skills assessment project over several months to stay realistic in your timeline, relying on past performance evaluations to guide your strategies. If you’re short on data or resources, consider bringing in an external expert!

Remember, your training plan is a strategic tool to help you achieve your goals. While employee well-being and productivity are essential, their professional development must also align with your organizational interests.

Individual meetings and performance reviews are opportunities to identify the professional skills required for an employee to meet their personal objectives and to ensure the development paths offered are also beneficial for achieving your strategic goals.

The chosen training method should match the type of skills to be acquired or enhanced, as well as the realities of the employees and teams involved.

Whether synchronous or asynchronous, in-person or remote, through a dedicated platform or with a specialized trainer—it’s important to evaluate all available training types. Consider the employee’s role and your industry to make the right choice. Involve the employee or team in the selection process and present them with options that align with their interests and positions.

Before offering professional development opportunities, ensure you have the required budget and know which resources to invest in to meet your goals.

• Will you hire a trainer or invest in training software (LMS)?
• Is your training budget fixed or flexible?
• Do your teams have the time needed to fully benefit from these development opportunities?

These questions are crucial. You must also arrange for business processes to remain unaffected while training is underway.

Finally, plan how to monitor the use of allocated resources to ensure you stay within the defined limits. Allocate time and effort to regularly track training activities and the time and budget devoted to them.

A precise timeline is essential to maintain productivity, adjust quickly if training is irrelevant, and ensure smooth operations.

A well-structured schedule respects employees’ working hours, avoiding stress caused by training sessions overlapping with regular work hours.

Set deadlines for all parties (employer, trainer, and employee) to make training a priority for everyone involved. If needed, arrange follow-up meetings and decide when and how to evaluate the success of your initiatives.

Evaluating outcomes and validating skills gained is an essential part of a good training management strategy. You can conduct tests or interviews to gauge the positive impact of training on employees’ professional routines.

It’s equally important to identify areas for future improvement, such as skills to deepen or training methods to refine.

Survey your teams to determine whether they found the training opportunities beneficial and relevant. This will allow you to continuously improve your training processes and use your allocated budget wisely, resulting in increased productivity and motivation!

As an employer, you have the tools to foster skill-building within your company. Keep in mind your legal training obligations which may imply mandatory training initiatives.

We often wrongly view development opportunities as one-off events in an employee’s lifecycle. In reality, they should be a core part of your HR strategy. Invest in continuous training by conducting regular professional development meetings with your teams. This approach will ensure long-term productivity and happiness for your talent!