There are various incentives and treats that companies traditionally have provided to employees to show appreciation and sweeten the working experience. Whether it’s holiday bonuses, casual Fridays, or office-provided lunches, all these incentives attempt to make work-life a more enjoyable experience for employees. The most successful tech companies have taken this to the next level, whether there campus offices that offer fitness spaces, food courts, and sometimes even a slide for fun. While all these sweeteners make the day-to-day grind a little more enjoyable, tech companies utilize an even more critical incentive–training and employee development. While employees appreciate perks like food, they value perks like training. Taking the time to provide training both inside and outside of the company to develop skills further supports your employees and helps your company. When you perpetually keep employees up to date on the most recent developments in tech, software, finance, or whatever sector an employee works in–the more informed a decision-maker you will have in your offices. Here are a few tips for improving employee work training regimens.
This is arguably the most important and most difficult step in developing vital training programs. Frankly, it’s what makes the teaching profession so complicated–everybody learns a little bit differently from each other, so finding a method that works for all students is complex. You must strive to create an inclusive learning environment that allows for all sorts of learning styles to fit into your training. Taking the time to diversify how information is dispersed will improve how information is absorbed. If you solely focus on power points, or solely focus on workshops, or solely focus on employee engagement activities, you will indeed engage with some of your employees, but not all of them. It will require extra time and energy and develop training programs with multiple levels and experiences built into them. Look specifically to create experiential learning opportunities, as they often sink in for the most significant amount of people. Everybody learns through doing to some degree or another, and so providing training that simulates the work someone has to do will be both engaging and informative.
Often once we leave educational institutions, the value of learning is de-emphasized. While plenty of companies want you to continue to develop, they also tend to focus on you completing your work ahead of you exploring a new concept or technique. This can diminish the urge to learn more and feel dispiriting for those thirsty to understand their field more deeply. Instituting a culture of learning and education can help combat this issue. If, from the top down, you express and provide space that shows the importance of education, you will develop a workforce that is curious, engaged, and wanting to learn more about the product they are developing. This is especially relevant to the world of technology, where rapidly changing standards or software can require employees to make tremendous leaps and changes in skillsets. Taking the time to develop a broad base of skillsets from your employees from the get-go can dispel some of the jarring effects of a transition to new company software.