Article: 3 Pillars of Training - Whom to Train, What to train & How to Train

A Brand Reachout InitiativeTraining & Development

3 Pillars of Training - Whom to Train, What to train & How to Train

Here's a simple process to develop that strategy which will make your Learning and Development program shoot up the stars without burning a hole in your pocket.
3 Pillars of Training - Whom to Train, What to train & How to Train

One of the best-kept secrets in modern management is how to align the training program with 5 organizational objectives, and how to measure the alignment. The three pedestals of every training essentiality – Whom to train, What to train on and How to train, make up for all your questions for the entirety of your program. 

Common knowledge it may be, but it’s also useless: simply knowing does not stop managers from happily throwing their training dollars out of the window (only to wake up next day with a strong headache and a desire for solitude and quiet). 

What can they do about it? The answer is easy: focus on learning more than on training.

Let us describe a simple model that we have found useful, intrinsically and extrinsically – Does your L&D program fail to achieve business objectives? And you need an answer, here’s a simple process to develop that strategy which will make your Learning and Development program shoot up the stars without burning a hole in your pocket. 

Let’s start with the simplest of things. 

  • By recruiting the right individuals, your company can have a much easier time motivating, retaining and engaging all your employees. When hiring, look for candidates with traits like passion, work ethics, integrity, resiliency, etc. 
  • Retain the talent that has been carefully handpicked, RoI is all about decreasing your recurring costs.
  • Develop & train the Existing Workforce, as they say – one bird in hand, is better than two in the bush.

Still knowing all this, people have failed.

Let’s take the contextual reference of Uber, when a breach is announced, most security and risk pros are not too surprised. Yet Uber found a way to make the industry raise our collective eyebrows when it was discovered that the company not only suffered a breach in late 2016 and failed to notify affected parties, but that its leadership appeared to take things a step further by engaging in a conspiracy to conceal the event,  paying hush money to the hackers/extortionists and hiding it from the General Counsel and Board.

Uber’s security leaders took the actions they did because: 

  1. They expected to get away with it
  2. It aligned with Uber’s corporate culture
  3. It followed the pattern of how Uber handled issues.


What can you do then?

The Three Pillars of Efficiency – 

So, it all delves down to effectively 3 questions – 

  • Whom to train
  • What to train on
  • How to train

Whom to Train

Much before you go about creating a training program to ‘upgrade’ your current workforce to match the current market demands, its important to know and think about the people who are undergoing the training – your employees. 

Questions like ‘Would they be interested in learning the particular topic?’ or ‘Will they be able to grasp the topic that’s being trained’ often go unanswered. This often leads to a rift between the expected results and the observations of the training program. 

What to Train

Deciding what to train is another important pillar and can be a major source of concern as it can directly affect the ROI of your training program based on the capacity and willingness of your employees to go through the training process.

Many learning and development initiatives are initiated by the organisation. Often the approach is top-down. What do employees need to learn? What is the knowledge we expect all the people on this level to have? How can we disseminate the global health & safety standards? Often the approach is not only top-down, but also very generic. Learning solutions are designed either for groups of people or tailored to the individual needs, wishes and learning styles of individual employees.

This can be done by adding a competency framework to your talent management program. By collecting and combining competency information, you can create a standardized approach to performance that's clear and accessible to everyone in the company. 

How to Train

Last but not the least, is there any way to scientifically assess the effectiveness of the training imparted on your employees? A way to measure the RoI of the huge investments being made by your company?

Given the current economic climate in which all expenditures are being carefully monitored, there is not a better time to introduce an assessment technique to create, deliver, measure and validate training that has true organizational value.

And, the Solution

Mettl’s assessment platform helps organizations create standard or customized “Skill” based tests. These tests are available across Cognitive, Behavioral, Personality and Functional skills; and help objectively measure, track and analyze prospective candidates and current employees. 

Mettl leverages psychometric sciences to enable organizations to make data driven decisions around their people for recruitment, employee development and talent management.

Mettl’s Training Evaluation Assessment Solutions measures not just perceived learning but also demonstrated understanding. It takes into account

  • Reaction: Candidates idea of whether the training program has helped him or not
  • Learning: how much the candidate has actually understood,
  • Behavior: how much he is able to retain even after the training has ended and
  • Result: captures the difference in participant’s behaviors and attitudes before and after the program.

Solve this roadblock in the training program you offer to your employees. When training aligns with the business and a well-defined feedback mechanism for all the stakeholders assists you with real numbers and a scientific approach, employees at all levels understand expectations, operationalize vision and values, and recognize what exactly is necessary to succeed.

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Topics: Training & Development

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