What is the Right Style of Training for Your Team's Development?

Training is something that most successful business owners understand is of real importance. By offering development opportunities, you can attract and retain good staff, improve job satisfaction, and end up with a far more capable team. Staff who have been well trained and hold professional certifications are also a good asset when trying to win new business, as this assures prospects that your team is a good set of hands for them to count on!
If you agree that training is something your business can benefit from dramatically, then you need a good strategy, and possibly to partner with the right training providers, if what you need isn't something you can do in house. There are lots of different approaches to training, and here we look at a few of the most common to help you decide which of them to include in your staff development approach.

Certification Paths

For technical or specialist staff, certification paths can be a great option. They can include a combination of training courses, self study and computer based training, and generally work towards an exam or series of exams for which a professional qualification is awarded. In IT for example, there are all kinds of certifications available from Microsoft, as well as other specialist companies like Cisco and HP. Training companies like commsupportnetworks.co.uk who provide these courses of study are licensed by the companies who award the certifications to do so.

Bespoke Training

If you have a large team who all need training in a single field, for example a new CRM system you want your whole customer service team to use proficiently, then it can be a good idea to bring in a training professional who can devise a bespoke course that can be delivered on your site. This can make it far more simple logistically, and means you can pick and choose the things you most care about your staff spending time on as they learn a new system or skill set.

Internal Coaching

A part of staff development that often gets overlooked is skills transfer and coaching. This is where you allocate time for skilled members of your existing team to spend trying to pass on some of their knowledge to other staff. This can be a valuable way to ensure you never have just one person who knows how to do something, and can also help the people who take on the coaching roles develop their leadership and mentoring skills – which are important for management. Using the skills you already have in the team to expand the knowledge of the whole unit is cost effective, and well worth putting time aside to do.

Computer Based Training

Another cost effective option to increase general skills is to put some optional computer based training in a variety of areas on your company intranet. This means staff who are interested or are stuck with nothing to do one day, can easily access a system that will help them gain new skills.
There are lots of ways to help develop your team, so it pays to review your training policy and plans annually and make sure you are offering your staff enough opportunities to grow!