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If you found ways to develop your employees and improve your company's products or services, would you invest in it? Of course, you would. But are you doing the same with your teams' training programs?
Team training enhances knowledge, skills, and collaboration among individuals working together. It improves team dynamics, communication, problem-solving, decision-making, and goal attainment. The goal is to create a cohesive and high-performing team that works effectively towards shared objectives.
Many businesses neglect to provide much in the way of training, despite a wealth of data showing the many benefits companies receive by offering different types of training for their teams.
You know the importance of implementing different employee training programs, so what types of employee training are the best focus for your efforts?
There are seven types of team training you should consider:
- Onboarding
- Technical skills
- Product or service training
- Soft skills
- Anti-bias and diversity training
- Compliance training
- Managerial and leadership skills
1. Onboarding
While orientation is undoubtedly an opportunity to impress company values, structure, and policies on recruits, onboard training is your first significant opportunity to train. While orientations generally last a few hours, onboarding can last for months.
It takes time to introduce new workers to the relevant hardware, software, and tasks they need in their roles. Onboarding is also when newbies mesh with the team and learn company culture. Effective onboarding translates into higher productivity and better retention.
You can incorporate some of the following types of training into onboarding, but you should still focus on them as separate, ongoing training.
[FREE DOWNLOAD: Onboarding Checklist: Tasks & Steps to Complete]
2. Technical skills
You may hire people with specific technical skills, but it is still wise to include specialized training to improve those skills and add new ones. Technical skills include operating systems, software applications, and specific machines or devices internal to your company.
Your team members and business will only benefit from having better-skilled workers.
3. Product or service training
Whether online or in a store, if customers ask questions about your business products or services, your teams should be able to provide a knowledgeable, straightforward answer. Customers go elsewhere if they can't get satisfactory answers.
Product knowledge training and specific service training are essential. They give workers critical knowledge and confidence about their jobs and help them provide customers with better answers.
4. Soft skills
Soft skills are just as critical as hard or technical skills but are often overlooked or dismissed, a grave mistake. Soft skills make relationships within your company and with your customers better. Soft skills include but aren't limited to:
- Listening
- Public speaking
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Adaptability
Soft skills also help you build a working company culture.
5. Anti-Bias and diversity training
Anti-bias and diversity training is essential to include as a type of employee training. Every team member should feel empowered and accepted, or you won't be helping anyone, including yourself.
A surprising amount of bias is unconscious or implicit, so your team must understand why anti-bias and diversity training is essential. Companies with more gender diversity outperform the competition by 15%, and in companies with ethnic diversity, outperformance jumps to 35%.
What would that mean for your business?
You don't want to lose talent because people feel isolated and unwelcome; instead, your business needs a strong, communicative, cohesive, collaborative team. Anti-bias and diversity training helps build this environment.
6. Compliance training
Compliance training should be more than just handing your employees a handbook.
Your teams may be legally required to complete specific training depending on your industry.
Examples include various licenses, accreditation, and certificates. Compliance training, including ethics, will ensure your employees understand the relevant laws, policies, and internal regulations.
7. Managerial and leadership skills
Remember to mandate training for your leadership. Almost everyone has one bad manager or leader story, and too many people have too many bad stories.
Bad managerial leadership drains employees' morale, productivity, and motivation, and many employees leave managers, not companies.
Your managers need to be influential leaders because they set the tone for company culture and accountability. Good leaders bring out the best in your team members, and as a result, motivation, retention, and productivity all go up.
Good managerial leadership can be learned, practiced, and perfected. Good leaders aren't magically born; they're trained. Invest in leadership training for managers and leaders at all levels of your company.
