Employee training is an important undertaking for every organization. Proper training makes employees well-acquainted with their jobs and thereby, improves productivity. When an organization takes an active interest in improving employees’ skills, it boosts morale and lowers the turnover rate.
Taking into account the role played by employee training, it cannot be considered optional. However, when a company is struggling financially, employee training is one of the first areas to face budget cuts. Whether you’re a small business with limited funds or a company making budget cuts, you can still provide relevant training to your employees. And here’s how:
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Pairing Employees
It’s not necessary to seek external experts and additional resources for effective employee training. Your in-house resources hold a lot of potential when it comes to developing employee training programs.
Identify the star performers with leadership skills in your team. Such employees can design and conduct sessions for other employees, particularly new hires. This is one of the most cost-effective ways to train employees. Moreover, learning in a familiar environment from a familiar face will put them at ease and speed up the process.
Lunch And Learn
Lunch and learn is a genius, low-budget option for employee training. By adding a social aspect to learning, you can create an open learning environment. One person can take up a topic to discuss during lunch or any other informal social gathering.
However, these training sessions shouldn’t be held every day. This can invite reluctance or disinterest from employees. It’s best to have training lunches on a monthly or biweekly basis. But remember, regularity is key.
Off-The-Shelf Training
If you have an existing eLearning program, an off-the shelf training module is an affordable way to add training courses. Since off-the-shelf eLearning is pre-built, you don’t incur a huge expenditure for developing training courses from scratch. Additionally, these are ready to deploy, so you can distribute them right away.
DIY Development Plans
Many times the employees have a better idea about their training requirements. By assisting employees with developing their training plans, you create low-budget training programs. You can tie-up with a development expert to help employees understand their skill gaps and make relevant training programs. Employees are likely to be invested in plans created by them.
Internal Mentoring Programs
What could be better than learning from an experienced manager? Internal mentoring programs give employees a chance to shadow an expert on the job. Not only does this help improve an employee’s capabilities, but it also deepens their commitment toward the organization. As for the organization, it won’t cost you directly but in the form of the time spent on mentoring employees.
Training Videos
Typed out training material often fails to create an impact, while verbally getting new hires up to speed can be quite time-consuming. Recorded training videos offer a good in-between. With the help of recorded training videos, you can streamline the process and deliver quick and effective training.
Gamification
With the average attention span shrinking day by day, you need a training program that’s affordable yet engaging. Enter gamification. Developing training courses using gamification is an interactive, engaging and memorable way to train employees. Skills learned by playing a fun game are easier to retain.
Free Training Resources
There are several online training seminars, courses, and materials that are free of cost. This is a reliable way to access quality training materials if you’re on a strict budget.
Final Words
As a business in a constantly evolving environment, you cannot afford to undermine employee training. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend a significant amount on it. It’s possible to build a skilled and productive workforce with low-budget employee training options.
If you are interested in even more business-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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