Professional development training helps employees learn new skills they need for their careers. Sometimes employees seek out professional development training on their own, while other times employers and managers direct and shape professional development training to help achieve company goals and ensure that employees have the skills needed to excel at their jobs.
Some Guidelines for Choosing Professional Development Training
As an employer, you can choose professional development that will help your workers, but there are some guidelines that will maximize your efforts. Psychologists say that there are different learning styles and ways of learning, so you should:
- Choose courses that correspond to your employees’ learning styles or that use different methods that cover all learning styles.
An individualized curriculum may be ideal when employees need to develop different skills. Sometimes one training does not fit all.
2. Have a trainer come and conduct one training for all employees.
Professional skills can be upgraded through training, but so can soft skills like team-building, collaboration, and leadership development. Investing in employee training can turn today’s entry level professionals into tomorrow’s managers and team leaders. You can short circuit the leadership shortages of the future by training promising employees now.
Creating a Culture That Values Learning
If you only do an occasional training and ignore learning all the rest of the time, your employees will not be encouraged to value it themselves.
Managers can create an atmosphere valuing learning, which will translate into employees eager to better their skills and expand their knowledge base.
The corporate environment is constantly changing, not only in the way business is conducted, but in the way employees need to conduct themselves in the workplace with each other and with clients and customers. If your employees don’t continue learning through professional development training programs, your entire company may be left behind or surpassed by other companies that invest in training programs.
Although online courses and trainings are becoming more available, there are advantages to learning in group settings face-to-face. Not only is the quality of interaction improved in face-to-face courses, but professional development can also be an opportunity to encourage team-building when some or all of your employees train together.
Using Technology in Learning
New technologies have become available in recent years that can make training more effective for employees. Courses can use recorded videos and can record your training sessions in order to replay them later or include employees that couldn’t be present when they happened.
There are many online content delivery systems that can also help trainers get their content in front of your employees. Continuing education professionals can make use of these technologies to maximize their effectiveness.
Central Connecticut State University offers continuing education courses that provide professional development for professionals of various kinds. Join our mailing list to learn more about valuable courses for your employees.