A Guide to Creating an Employee Training and Development Program

Creating an employee training and development program from scratch is a challenge. Do it right, and you’ll give your organization a foundation for success for years to come. Do it haphazardly, and you’ll find yourself working and reworking it and wasting valuable time.

This is your guide to starting (or growing) your organization’s training and development program in the right way. Once you have the fundamentals down, you can fast-track your program deployment by using a course library, such as those offered by HSI. Using existing off-the-shelf content can help you build the program with ease, especially if you are the one solely responsible for training.

What Is Employee Training and Development?

Employee training and development is often treated as one overarching initiative that HR departments are expected to implement rather than a set of distinct but related efforts. In reality, “training” and “development” refer to different things, though they are two sides of the same coin.

Employee development is the overall process that an employer offers employees to help them learn and improve new skills, acquire new knowledge, and meet their career goals.

Employee training is a program designed to develop and improve both technical skills, and soft skills, along with resolving any knowledge gaps to do a specific job more efficiently, successfully, or safely.

Each training opportunity supports the employee's progression through their development plan. To illustrate the difference, visualize an architect’s role versus a contractor’s.

An architect will design an office building and, with input from the client, decide what the overall building will look like—How many stories will it be? How large will the lobby be? Where will the elevator and stairs be located?

A contractor, on the other hand, is much more interested in the concrete details—What supports are needed under the flooring? What bolts are needed to secure the stairs? How do we guarantee that the building is built to code?

Development, then, is working with your employees to be architects for their careers. And training provides the “concrete details” in the form of skills and knowledge needed to support each step.

Creating Your Employee Training and Development Program

Training is a core aspect of employee development. But development is not simply a set of training courses strung together over time. There must be an overall plan for development to happen. HR’s role is to create a template for an effective employee training program that justifies the organization’s investment in those efforts.

Here’s the action plan for creating your own employee training and development program:

1. Recognize goals.
2. Identify competencies.
3. Do a gap analysis.
4. Interview employees.
5. Offer formal training.
6. Add coaching/mentoring.
7. Allow self-directed learning.

Step 1: Recognize Goals

When developing a training and development program, the temptation is to start considering tools, training courses, and timelines. Resist this temptation and step back for a moment. What are the overall business goals senior leaders want to achieve? What are the intermediate steps or milestones leading to those goals?

Does your company’s strategic plan involve mergers or acquisitions? You will need a plan for change management and sharing the common mission, vision, and values. Perhaps there’s a renewed focus on customer service. How does it extend beyond your frontline employees? When creating an employee training and development program, the first step should always be to recognize goals.

Step 2: Identify Competencies

Competencies are groups of abilities, behaviors, knowledge, and skills that impact the success of employees and organizations. Some examples of competencies are instilling trust, driving employee engagement, and building effective teams. Once you have identified the competencies your organization wants to foster, it will be easier to define learning pathways for individual employees that instill those competencies.

Why competencies, rather than, say, individual skills or job requirements? Competency-based learning is now a mainstay in the most successful businesses. According to a Deloitte study, 89% of “best-in-class organizations” had core competencies defined for all their roles (compared to a mere 48% of all other companies). A separate report by Fortune and Aon Hewitt found that 100% of companies making the global top companies list use a well-defined competency model.

Step 3: Do a Gap Analysis

A gap analysis is a report that identifies the difference between your employees’ current competencies and the skills or performance levels you want them to achieve.

It is likely that you already have plenty of data and information to start a gap analysis. Your official HR records may contain job descriptions, performance evaluations, and even accident and safety reports. Start with these. You may also have other formal tools, such as employee assessments or 360-degree reviews. If not, it might well be worth the investment so you can have a clear, objective picture of your workforce.

Step 4: Interview Employees

As an architect works with the client to make decisions about the building design, this same type of partnership is critical for employee development, too.

It’s a good idea to take note, of an eyebrow-raising study done by Quantum Workplace Research:

• 35% of employees say their organization doesn’t effectively respond to survey results.
• When employees see action on their feedback, they’re 12x more likely to be engaged.
• 55% want more transparency from their leader, and 53% believe current communication lacks transparency, according to Zipdo.

Ouch! Needless to say, if your employee development program is going to work at all, you need to talk to your employees and listen to them. The most important thing to do is to find out what their own goals are within your company. You may have an employee in IT, for example, who excels and has a strong rapport with the team. The employee looks, from the outside, like a prime candidate to be promoted to a management position.

But does he want to be a manager? What if he is perfectly happy in his current role and has no interest in leading others? No matter how much training you have in your back pocket, forcing a new role on the employee may create resentment, set them up to fail, or leave the company.

There are other things you can learn from employee feedback. You can get their insights into the findings from your gap analysis, find out how and when they prefer to learn, and so on.

Step 5: Offer Formal Training

With the preliminary work done, now it’s time to identify skill gaps in employee competencies. The formal training program should assign specific training courses to your employees. These should include not only job-specific skills, but also general business skills and soft skills training.

What form should these formal training sessions take? For many skills, short online video courses will fit the bill. These can be off-the-shelf videos on common topics, such as HR compliance, leadership, and communications skills. In addition to video courses, a good learning foundation also includes in-depth content options around topics such as coaching and feedback, employee well-being, and more. Training materials help put learning into action.

The best training programs tend to use blended learning, which uses both instructor-led sessions and online media. With a blended learning approach, online courses can help free up instructors’ time, allowing them to use classroom time for more productive activities, such as group discussion, practice sessions, or Q&A. Read our case study to see how Conway Corp partnered with HSI to integrate blending learning into their curriculum and provide access across all departments.

Step 6: Add Coaching/Mentoring

Mentoring and coaching are not at odds with training. In fact, mentoring can be an invaluable addition to your professional development program, especially for nurturing your high-potential employees.

A mentoring program creates relationships among employees that allow for knowledge development and transfer in order to help less experienced employees grow professionally. Matching mentors and mentees is a critical component for creating a successful program. Match employees based on:

• Experience. There shouldn’t be too big or too small a gap between the experience of the mentor and the mentee. The mentee needs to be able to learn and be challenged but not overwhelmed.
• Expectations. Both parties should know what to expect out of the relationship. The mentor needs to see the relationship as more than just an opportunity to “share war stories,” for example.
• Compatibility. When mentors and mentees have similar approaches and styles of communication, the relationship is often much more fruitful. For example, you might consider getting a DISC assessment and matching employees with similar communication styles.

Once you have determined potential matches, draft best practices and a mentoring agreement. To help you get started, HSI has created a mentoring program template. Check out our blog and download the worksheet and start planning.

Step 7: Allow Self-Directed Learning

Open up your learning library to employees so they can find the courses they want and take them at a time that works for them. Not only will your high-potential employees be motivated to learn and advance on their own, but those needing further development will be as well.

There are many benefits to offering self-directed learning. It better accommodates different learning styles, increases the speed of professional development, and gives organizations a better ROI for their training dollars.

Self-directed learning significantly enhances employee job satisfaction and career growth while also fostering a strong learning culture. Not to mention it drives employee retention. Here’s just a handful of real-life examples making a real impact:

• Soft Skills: Employees often don’t like to admit they need help with soft skills. But, there are so many beneficial soft skills to practice and learn—multitasking, conflict resolution, creativity, communication skills, emotional intelligence and so much more!

"I used to have difficulty articulating my ideas clearly. After taking HSI’s communication courses, everything changed—I’m now more confident, concise, and my input resonates.” —An early career professional, manufacturing

• Leadership Development: Leaders must develop the skills necessary to build inclusive, high-performing, and fulfilled employees.

"HSI’s online leadership training around managing teams and motivating others gave me the confidence and knowledge I needed to excel in my new role." —A new people manager, retail industry

• New Management & Supervisory Training: Training on topics such as effective delegation, giving feedback/coaching, and analyzing employee performance is well worth the return on investment.

"I want to lead with confidence. I’m currently taking numerous self-paced HSI courses on emotional intelligence.” —A first-time manager, financial services

• Career Development: HSI offers video-based lessons, such as Learning to Lead, How to Use Generative AI and Developing a Growth Mindset, to help employees move forward in their careers.

"I want to move into a management role, so I’m learning about strategic planning and people management through HSI’s online courses and peer mentoring." —A team lead specialist, e-commerce

• Cybersecurity: Are all your employees prepared to recognize and avoid phishing, malware, and social engineering? OpenVPN found that 25% of employees use the same password for everything. Time for self-directed cybersecurity training!

“I’m learning about human-related cyber risks like phishing and social engineering through HSI’s microlearning video modules." —A sales professional, pharmaceuticals

• Health & Wellness: When employees are healthy, they’re more focused, engaged, and productive. HSI’s courses range from managing stress and your mental and physical health.

"I’ve been feeling the effects of sitting all day, so I’m watching HSI’s short videos on desk exercises and incorporating micro-breaks into my routine." —An office administrator, health care

• Inclusion and Belonging: For both the success of the individual employees and the organization, it’s critical to create a safe environment for employees. HSI training includes topics around unconscious bias, anti-racism, cross-cultural considerations, and a host of other themes.

"As a manager, I want every team member to feel they belong. I’m taking a self-paced course on inclusive leadership and practicing active listening." —A manager, hospitality

• Point-of-Need Skills: There’s nothing like having microlearning at your fingertips when you need it most!

“I needed to brush up on my negotiation skills after being tasked with purchasing costly custom software. Having access to HSI’s 5-minute microlearning video on power and leverage in negotiations was a confidence builder!” —An IT professional, technology

HR Compliance Training: Do your employees know how to navigate workplace challenges with confidence? Is your organization legally compliant? Are your managers making sound hiring decisions?

"I handle HR duties myself and want to stay compliant. I’m using HSI’s online courses to learn about employee rights and state-specific requirements." —A business owner, retail

HSI Can Help

Are you ready to get started creating your own learning and development program? Follow our lead, and you can have an effective learning and development program up and running successfully in a fraction of the time it would take otherwise.

HSI offers a comprehensive online learning experience that caters to diverse learning styles and preferences. Our video-based microlearning provides engaging visual content that captures attention and facilitates comprehension. The courses help create a synergy that maximizes culture change and empowers employees to achieve their professional development goals in the flow of work.

We welcome the opportunity to partner with you and your organization. No matter where you are in building your employee training program, share your goals — and we’ll help you turn them into action. Enjoy some of our free lessons and request a consultation today!

Oh, be sure to ask us about our learning management system (LMS) that delivers, manages, and tracks training.

Additional Resources

• Explore our blog on the "Elements of a Whole-Person Approach to Employee Training."
• Download our free infographic, Maximize Your ROI with Strategic L&D Training Infographic" to learn how to re-engage your employees to significantly improve your ROI.
• Dive deeper into soft skills training by reading, "A Comprehensive Guide to Soft Skills Training."
• For more on understanding the complete learning environment, check out our eBook, "The Learning Ecosystem."