The Benefits Are Huge If You Approach Training Methodically
There’s a huge difference between training for industrial jobs and training for industrial jobs effectively. Many industrial organizations treat the training of their staff as a tick box exercise – something they simply must do so that their industrial staff can get up to speed to meet required standards as quickly as possible.
But there’s much more to it than that, and, if done correctly, the benefits of an effective workforce can be huge. There are plenty of reasons you should be ensuring you prioritize effective training of your industrial staff. Effective training can:
- Increase revenue and profits
- Increase productivity
- Increase regulation compliance
- Improve the safety of staff
- Improve correct use of equipment and machinery, reducing faults
- Create a happier and more engaged workforce
- Improve staff retention
- Decrease costs
- Decrease waste
In this article, we outline the steps needed to develop a training regime that delivers industrial excellence.
Assess Your Training Needs
Take time to assess where training is required. Identify the problems that need addressing. To help you do this, follow these steps:
- Identify the goal – do you want to reduce waste or increase efficiency, for example? Define what it is you’re trying to achieve.
- Clarify the change – what is the gap between current practice and where you want change to happen?
- Confirm the target or KPI set for staff to reach and trainers to monitor.
It seems like an obvious step, but you’d be surprised how many businesses rush into training without pinpointing what they want to achieve.
If you don’t clarify these points first, you’ll be leading your staff into disruptive confusion, and lose their motivation and willingness to change.
Analyze Your Audience
How can you deliver your effective training to your staff? Consider the following:
- What they already know, and their current skills
- Their availability to train within their schedules
- How best they receive and understand information (practically, theoretically, instructor-led, group collaboration, etc.)
- Any physical handicaps
Plan How to Present the Training
There are so many ways you can present your training, and assessing your audience’s preferred way of learning will help you decide how best to deliver the training. Examples include:
- Virtual training
- One-on-one training
- Mentoring and shadowing ‘on the job’
- Video training materials
- Written training
- Group tasks and challenges
- Tests and assessments
How you deliver the training will make all the difference to how it is received and how much information is absorbed. Think carefully about what works well with schedules, and how engaged your audience will be.
Evaluation
Training is a progressive development that should be continuously assessed for effectiveness, and adjusted accordingly. Rolling out a training program and leaving it to its own device may have disastrous consequences that aren’t recognized until it’s too late.
On delivery of the training, assess its effectiveness. Having KPIs and targets already in place will help you gauge how well information has been received and performed, so that you can make adjustments accordingly and reassess.
Document all records of training and results, so that you can easily monitor progress and effectiveness.
Get Feedback and Provide Support
Speak to your industrial staff and see how they feel about the training and its purpose. Do they feel motivated, and supported? Do they have any suggestions for improvements? Are there better ways the training could be delivered to help them understand or access the information better?
It’s important to gauge the feeling on the shop floor. Your industrial staff must be listened to, as they often have very valid ideas and opinions, and are more likely to engage with the training when they feel they’re a part of the change.
Summing Up
Training shouldn’t be just a standard, rigid, dated tick box procedure. The results of effective training are highly beneficial to the business and its industrial staff.
When you define what you need to achieve, and guide your staff step by step, inviting their thoughts and making adjustments to improve the journey, you’ll soon see a difference in the engagement of your teams, the willingness to achieve, and exceptional improvements financially and operationally.
Get in touch with HireGround today to find exceptional industrial staff to join your workforce.
