Employee learning and development is important and vital to any organization. It not only provides benefit to the individual but also to the business, helping your company to continue to run effectively. However, once you have provided initial job training with a new employee is there a need for any further learning and development investment? Yes!

Initial training should only be the first step of a longer-term learning process. Regular learning and development is well worth the investment, because building up the knowledge, skills and working relationships within your organization will effectively improve your company’s bottom line. With a quality learning and development plan in place, you are sure to see your return on investment. Without this investment, you are sure to see the effects of a disengaged team; conflict in the workplace, higher turnover, low retention, and inconsistency in service.

Employers cannot expect as the organization evolves that their employees’ abilities, capabilities, and skills will evolve without a plan

The common problems that the human resource departments face can be avoided if there is a plan for continuous learning and development. There are many moving pieces within any organization, but none more impactful than employees who don’t do the job they are hired to do. It’s not because they wake up in the morning deliberately deciding not to – instead, there are many internal and external obstacles getting in their way. Leaders will often get confused and blame lack of training, when it’s more about lack of ongoing learning and development. The issues that consume the human resource departments can be avoided if efforts go towards prevention. While the axiom “people will pay more for a cure rather than prevention” may be true, there is no need for your organization to take a passive role when it comes to dealing with ongoing issues with your employee group.

In Susan M. Heathfield article Top 10 Toughest HR Questions: Asked and Answered she explores the common issues Human Resource Professionals need to contend with.

The corporate training and orientations applied and performed via human resource departments have changed considerably inside the last few decades. A massive range of human resource managers now opt for committed company learning to make sure that employees have a higher know-how of their work and are capable of reaping their expert goals more correctly. Although most human resource departments would like to invest more in corporate learning and development, often times the senior manager of operations controls the budget for such endeavors. But this does not have to be an expensive endeavor; not everyone requires or needs Microsoft Certification or to learn the absolute on a plethora of subject areas currently out there.

Organizational training is a very lengthy endeavor. Therefore, there is a terrific want for cautious tracking to get unique feedback concerning what goes on after the initiation of a company on-boarding program. This will assist in making appropriate modification on every occasion vital. While the employee makes their way through the corporate development, when do you know when it’s training or competence? Training is more about what is provided to the employees, while learning is more around what’s done with the employees. We can train in technical, operational, and procedural areas, while the learning environment is more around evolving critical thinking and the ability to act upon items not previously outlined or experienced – what do you do when there is no rulebook or operations manual? Learning what the one operational goal of every organization is brings clarity for the employees, leaders, and customers.

After the preliminary on-boarding and training of an employee, there may be a want for ongoing learning that also builds additional skill sets:

1. Highest productivity may be executed when the employee desires are integrated with the organizational desires.
2. Playing an active role in defining the culture in an organization where employees can thrive, outside of individual sub-cultures.
3. Cooperation is more effective than warfare. Often times, the employee groups don’t know how they can deliver on the organization strategies and strategic direction.
4. Inter-personal trust, aid, and collaboration should be as high as possible. When we create an environment to learn together it fosters creative thinking and increases productivity.
5. The distinction between dedication and agreement ought to be completely understood.
6. Active participation when dealing with conflict to ensure everyone is contributing to meaningful work.

What is the purpose of a learning and development ongoing plan?

• The best learning and development increases employees’ abilities, capabilities, and skills to create a sustainable, successful organization and is a crucial part of an employer’s business method. Employers cannot expect as the organization evolves that their employees’ abilities, capabilities, and skills will evolve without a plan for ongoing learning and development.
• With increased personal fulfillment, the employee feels valued due to the fact the business enterprise is continuing to invest in them, and is providing opportunities to deliver meaningful work.
• Employers will see a return on investment because the productiveness will boom engagement – leading to better customer satisfaction.
• To allow employees to be exposed to relevant content and subjects that are applicable and solve the troubles the organization is experiencing, while bridging the cap to their learning.

Employee learning and development is important and vital to any organization. Human resource professionals should look towards implementing a bi-monthly if not quarterly learning and development plan. A plan which provides consistent, relevant, and responsive content that leaves the employees feeling valued while delivering on the organization’s strategic direction/goals is a plan which employees will stay with an organization for. The most productive people in any organization have continuous learning in common. To attract high quality employees and retain them requires an ongoing corporate learning and development plan. What is the ongoing learning and development plan in your organization? Is it worth bragging about?