Employees are the most invaluable intangible asset to any business, no matter how small or big. With the rise of the knowledge economy, the demand for human resource development has escalated. This is especially true because what distinguishes one organization from another is its workforce. Employees’ efficiency, knowledge, and talent determine the growth of an organization.
When new employees join the organization, they might possess the knowledge and understanding essential for their job responsibility. But despite this, they might not be able to deliver the right work to your organization due to a lack of proper skills. Hence, it becomes important to train your employees so that they acquire accurate skills that can help them perform their job roles and responsibilities well. It increases their productivity and efficiency and thus enables them to contribute to the organization. Thus, we can say that employee training is a win-win situation for both the employees and employers.
An organization consists of employees working in different departments that require distinct skills and knowledge. Hence, training needs to be in such a way that it caters to the needs of a wide and diverse range of employees.
A learning management system or an LMS help in designing, creating, and delivering training programs to employees. It offers personalized and on-the-go learning without any breaks. Using an LMS you can create informative and useful eLearning courses and content for the employees that help them upskill or reskill themselves.
If you’re running a small business, here are some online training courses that you must introduce to your employees.
1. Product training
Product training is the process of educating employees about the features and uses of the company’s products and services. When employees have some understanding of the company’s products and services, they can better communicate the same to the customers and clients. Such training is very useful for the marketing and sales team of the company.
Product training offers you the following benefits:
- Increased sales of the company’s products and services.
- Enables employees to help customers and clients in case any issue arises.
- Encourages employees to provide innovative ideas to improve the existing products and make them more accessible and usable to the customers and clients.
- Allows employees to discuss the company’s products and services with more passion and enthusiasm with clients and customers.
Also read: Product Manager: What is it, Roles and Responsibilities
2. Soft skills training
Soft skills are the social and interpersonal skills that help employees interact with customers and clients. Communication, leadership, problem solving, critical thinking, etc are examples of soft skills.
For small businesses, it is important to provide soft skills training to establish a confident and strong workforce. While hard skills keep changing with time, soft skills do not and hence, hold more value than hard skills. When employees possess such skills, they can interact and communicate with customers and clients easily.
Soft skills training leads to an increase in productivity of employees, efficiency of teams, and collaboration between different departments.
3. Marketing training
It’s no secret, that marketing is the major reason for small business success. For small businesses, marketing products, services, and brands are important in reaching customers and clients and hence improving small business sales.
Marketing training is important for employees because-
- It helps your business survive in the highly competitive market.
- Helps build brand value both offline and online.
- Helps in identifying the shifts in consumer purchasing behavior.
- It can open new doors of opportunity for your business. By being up-to-date with the latest innovations, technology, and developments you can make required changes in your products and services.
- It helps employees improve their communication skills when they interact with clients and customers offline and through social media platforms.
4. Leadership training
Leadership training for employees is a promising sign of success. Leadership training helps employees to develop-
- Honesty
- Emotional intelligence
- Sound decision making
- Problem-solving skills
This training makes employees excellent leaders who work well under pressure and fulfills all responsibilities. They delegate work and show the capability to become guides and mentors to their colleagues.
It also develops collective leadership i.e, increases collaboration and partnership between the founder, supervisors, department heads, etc. of small businesses. Such a leadership promotes flat workforce structure.
Leadership training enables employees to manage all risks and crises with a calm mind. Moreover, when every employee in your small business is given an equal chance to opt for leadership training, he will be more interested in training. After all who doesn’t want to be a leader or a team head?
Also read: 10 Best Strategies to Attract and Retain Skilled Employees
5. Social media training
Presently, over half of the global population is on social media. Thus, it becomes important for small businesses to expand their presence on these platforms. Employees who are active on social media platforms can be provided with social media training to create content and market products that target a large audience.
For instance, you can teach social media advertising to your employees. Through this, they can learn how to use social media to raise brand awareness and create advertising campaigns that target audiences.
They will be able to create the right type of content for the audiences and share the same across different social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Indeed, etc.
Aside from social media training, it’s also best to upskill some of your employees with tech courses. You might be wondering where to get an ITIL certification. Luckily, a quick internet search will already give you a list of online training that you can let some of your employees take.
6. Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Training
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training are becoming more and more relevant with expanding and diversifying the workforce. Such training helps employees value diversity and multiculturalism. It enables the creation of a harmonious work environment, where employees from different backgrounds, cultures, religions, and races feel wanted and valued.
Here are some benefits of DEI training:
For small businesses
- Drive bottom-line business success
- Deliver long-term value creation
- Avoid public relations disasters
- Reduces employee turnover
- Bring in diverse talent with distinct points of view
For employees
- Boost employee engagement
- Increases employee participation and productivity
- Raises employee morale
During DEI training, you can assign eLearning projects to teams having employees from different cultural backgrounds.
Conclusion
Small businesses need to provide on-time and on-the-go online training to employees so that they can use their skills and knowledge in the best possible way. Providing training to employees helps you create a workforce that can in return help your organization to flourish. When employees are properly trained, they would require the least assistance and supervision from you and can handle work-related issues effectively.
Leave a comment