2 Components of Effective Training Programs
Companies spend a lot of time and money on training employees. Some bring in outside consultants, others send key staff to off-site training facilities and others even host their own. Unfortunately, too many companies see little to no return on their investment.
Many times, the problem isn’t with the company or people. They try their best to incorporate the lessons into their company and see little or no benefit. When that happens, it could be because the program was missing one of two critical components.
The best training programs need to cover both job skills and interpersonal skills. If your training program doesn’t, your team won’t have what they need to do their best work. Here’s why both of those are important.
Job skills training
If employees don’t learn the correct standards for their job, they won’t know how to do their jobs well. If they are not well trained in applying the standards, they won’t be able to do them consistently well. When you teach them both the standards and how to apply them, they’ll do their jobs right the first time.
Your employees will also be able to teach each other how to do to their jobs well. This creates a focus on doing top-quality work at all levels of your organization.
Interpersonal skills training
At Ole Miss, we invest a lot of time helping our team develop interpersonal skills. We teach accountability, commitment, teamwork and adaptability. We teach integrity, honesty, purpose and unity. We teach communication, collaboration, dependability and problem-solving skills.
These skills help employees work together as a team. They help cultivate a leadership culture throughout the department and throughout the University. They prevent many problems from occurring, and when problems do arise, they give our staff the necessary skills to resolve them.
Does your training program teach job skills and interpersonal skills?
The best training programs teach both job skills and interpersonal skills. Job skills training helps each staff member do consistently good work. Interpersonal skills training helps your staff work well together as a team.
That’s why I created Landscape University. Landscape University gives leaders a simple process for training staff. It helps leaders teach both job skills and interpersonal skills. Since using the process at Ole Miss, we’ve experienced increased productivity and decreased inefficiencies. We’ve even experienced decreased turnover. I now help other universities and companies develop similar training programs, too.
