System’s Approach to Training

As a business owner, your main objective is to address any issue that would prevent your company from being successful. This includes how you choose among the various approaches to training and development at your workplace because employees who don’t have the tools to do their jobs will not be productive. A systems approach to training is beneficial in that it prioritizes your company’s objectives and goals before starting training. A systematic training process ensures that training begins and ends with your company’s needs. By using a systematic training process, you equip your employees with the knowledge and resources to pursue your company’s goals.

Identify Who Needs Training

When you implement a systems approach to training, the first step is to identify the groups within your company that need training. In many instances, you would study employee performance to determine whether or not a certain group or certain individuals fail to meet the basic standards on a regular basis. You would also consult with your management and supervisory staff to determine in which areas they believe training is lacking, and the issues that result from that lack of training. Rank-and-file employees should have a say in the systems approach to training, because they are the employees most affected by shortfalls in training, and they can help you understand the resources they need to improve performance.

Formulate Training Objectives

In the systematic training process, the next step is to formulate the specific duties that your employees will be able to accomplish after they complete training. None of the approaches to training and development will be successful, if you can’t specify exactly what you want your employees to learn. For example, let’s say that you want your customer service reps to learn the psychology of pleasing a customer. You might make a list of objectives, which include:

• At the completion of training, employees will understand the meaning of the “customer journey.”
• At the completion of training, employees will understand a “customer persona.”
• At the completion of training, employees will understand “customer trigger words” to avoid.
• At the completion of training, employees will understand which techniques to use to de-escalate conflict with a customer.

By formulating these specific objectives, you now have a way of measuring the effectiveness of the training.

Choose a Training Method

After specifying the training objectives, you must choose from a range of training methods that will best match the needs of your employees. In some instances, you may decide to implement several different methods based on the type of training your employees will receive. Some of the more common types of training methods include lectures, case studies, role-playing, sensitivity training, practical exercises, discussions, and project work. In the above example of the customer service training, you may choose a mix of role-playing, discussions, and sensitivity training to ensure that your employees have all the tools they need.

Assess Training Results

All approaches to training and development are predicated on delivering results. That’s why the final step of the systematic approach to training is to assess the results through some type of metric. The three things you need to know are whether or not the training was of high quality, whether the training improved performance or productivity, and whether the training provided a return on your investment. In some instances, the training results can’t be quantified, but you can still obtain qualitative measurements via employee evaluation forms that provide you with feedback.