Further training reduces "brain drain". Almost everyone in HR knows this: an employee leaves and only afterwards do you realize that she was the only one with important information or a key skill. By training a larger number of employees in your own corporate culture and in various skills, you prevent the brain drain and the knowledge gaps that come with it.
And ultimately, this issue is very important to employees!
According to the Capterra survey, 86% of all employees in small companies (companies with 100 or fewer employees) consider continuous learning and skill development to be “very important” or “fairly important”:
importance of employees of small companies
Further training is definitely worthwhile for companies, even if the change is not always easy. In the next section, we will therefore give you a few tips on how to quickly get started with various further training opportunities.
Tips: How to set up a continuing education program
Your small business wants to support staff training but doesn’t know how?
Here are a few tips to get you started:
Tip 1: Limit yourself to resources in a few selected areas
Although there are many skills that employees could develop, it is beneficial to limit yourself to areas that simultaneously meet the following criteria: 1. Skills that most employees want to acquire and 2. Skills that bring great benefits to the company.
We asked small businesses what areas their staff would like to receive training in and three answers stood out: technical knowledge (46%), management/leadership skills (45%) and task-specific skills (44%).
most sought-after skills for employees of small companies
It's not surprising that employees fear their technical skills aren't up to date, as digitalization is advancing at a rapid pace. An analysis of 13 million new jobs in the US since 2010 found that almost two-thirds " require intermediate or advanced digital skills ."
A focus should therefore be placed in this area, whether in training for programs already in place in the company or for those that are to be used in the future.
There is also a lack of important leadership skills, which means that more and more employees in small companies are leaving due to poor management. Further training in this field is essential, regardless of the industry.
If you suspect that your employees would prefer to learn other skills, find out. Simply ask them using an anonymous survey or ask individual managers to bring up the topic during annual performance reviews.
Tip 2: Promote self-directed learning with MOOCs
Training programs don't have to be rigid classroom-based. There are also options where employees can learn right at their desks, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
Example of a MOOC catalog in SmarterU LMS (
source )
MOOCs are eLearning courses that can either be created by yourself or purchased from a third-party provider such as Lynda.com, edX or Udemy. They are then available to employees via a learning platform .
A positive factor with MOOCs is the extensive control over administration belgium telegram data This means that you have the option of giving all employees access to certain MOOCs that they can complete during quiet periods. In addition, you can also create your own learning paths by grouping individual MOOCs together on a topic such as leadership skills.
Due to the option to purchase existing courses and their very high level of flexibility compared to location-based training, MOOCs are a scalable and cost-effective solution that can be used for more than just setting up a support program.
Tip 3: Break training down into small learning units
At first glance, what is the difference between one 60-minute workout and six 10-minute workouts? You'd think there is none, but in reality it's huge.
Example of a micro-learning course in MLS
Example of a micro-learning course in MLS (
source )
Microlearning involves presenting learning units of 10-15 minutes, which offers advantages for further training: