Custom training in any company is only as effective as its alignment to the company goals and objectives. No matter how mind-blowing your training initiatives are, if you fail to align it with any one of the goals of the business, then it would be deemed useless.
This is why you need to make sure that the goals and objectives of your training course are first and foremost, aligned with that of the business. You may want to revolutionize the learning in the office but if it is not meeting any of the company goals, it will not be useful.
Company goals come in two forms. There is the generic and long-term goals that rarely change. Sometimes, only a major overhaul in the management will bring changes upon it. These goals are easier to implement in your training program. The other form of company goals is more specific and short-term. These are constantly changing – which makes it more challenging to consider in your custom training program.
The thing that you need to be careful with are the short-term goals of the company. These are the goals that are oftentimes set at the beginning of the year (or the fiscal year). Sometimes, the different departments in the company have their own goals. This is what you have to ensure is aligned to your training programs.
To make this task easier to accomplish, here are tips that you can use to align your custom training course to the goals of the organization that you will be dealing with.
- Involve the leaders. What we are talking about is the top level management. We know that these people are very busy so you have to help them help you. It is not necessary for you to set a meeting with them. You can send them an email and provide them with questions that can give you clues to the goals that you need to incorporate in your training course.
- Understand the long-term goals of the company. If you will find it hard to get feedback from the leaders, you can look at the long-term goals instead. Usually, the short-term goals of the company are aligned with the long-term. If you make sure that your training course is aligned with the long-term goals of the company, that should help make it more valuable and useful to the employees being trained.
- Think about the vision of the company. When you want to meet the goals of your custom training program, you normally focus on the end result that you want to have. This is why the company’s vision is something that you should consider too. The mission may also be important, but it is more of the vision that will give you an idea about where the company wants to end up in the future. That is what your training program should try to meet.
- Highlight the value of the course in the business. Quantifying any project in the company is important. You need to justify that the effort and resources you are putting into it will do the company some good. For training courses, this might be difficult to make. It is hard to quantify investments in learning. However, this is not impossible to do. You simply have to concentrate on the improvements that it will bring to the productivity of the employees. Since profit is always included in the list of company goals, focusing on making the learners more productive should keep your course aligned to the business objectives.
You have to remember that a custom training program does not start nor end with the course itself. From conceptualization, creation, implementation, application, and up to the follow through, the concept of teamwork and collaboration should always be imposed. You cannot create a successful and effective training course without the help of the management and the people who will go through the training themselves. You need to unite all of your forces and you can do that by aligning the course with the goals of the business.
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