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In 2019, the corporate training market reached a record $370 billion. Training has become the key to opening up career prospects for employees.
But it's not enough just to pass an educational programme - you also need to choose which one will really benefit you. In her article for Forbes, the founder and CEO of Lectera Mila Semeshkina told what an effective corporate training programme should be like and what criteria one needs to remember to choose it correctly.
First of all, pay attention to what skills the training programme focuses on. Is it hard skills or soft skills? According to statistics, 52% of programmes are focused on the development of specialists' technical skills. However, this is wrong. A LinkedIn study found that your priority should be to learn soft skills - these are the ones that increase your productivity. Thus, by boosting your soft skills, you will inevitably improve your performance!
Also, a feedback system should be built into the corporate training system. If the L&D specialist offering you a programme is interested in the employees' opinions on it, then the programme is regularly updated and meets their needs. The programme should also have easy access to it and a flexible user interface. If you need to go through 50 forms and provide as many authentication codes to watch one video tutorial, it's definitely not worth it!
What, in your opinion, is the main difference between effective and ineffective learning? The former has a practical part! If the programme includes only lectures or all the practical part is reduced to passing tests, look for a different course. Tests evaluate your memory, not whether you have developed a skill. Truly effective training should include practical tasks that you can encounter in life. It should also give employees the opportunity to put their knowledge to the test.
The result of training also depends on how comfortable it is for you. If lessons require you to interrupt work on important tasks and watch lectures right at work, you won't benefit from such training. Ideally, it should be outside office hours and be broken down into small "blocks". Surely, it's easier to spend 15 minutes a day training than to devote the whole weekend to it.
You can learn even more about what effective corporate training should be like from the original Forbes article.
