Nowadays, most people who run a business know the importance of investing in internal training to improve the performance of their employees and achieve their goals.

Faced with a scenario in which distance education has increasingly gained more space, many companies have seen online courses as a practical and accessible option to train, develop and qualify their teams.

Regardless of the format chosen, in order to create assertive content it is imperative to know all the steps involved in creating a business training program and how to put it into practice.

If you’re interested, stay with us!

In this text we will show the differences between the online and on-site formats and teach you the step-by-step process on how to create your own training program.

Why create a training program in your company?

If you haven’t conducted any training in your company yet, you might be wondering why investing in it is so important.

Check out a few of the benefits that business training can bring to your business.

Training employees

One of the main goals of internal training is to qualify employees to perform their duties in the best possible way.

As much as the recruitment and selection processes are effective in hiring employees, without adequate training it is difficult to ensure that they will be able to use their full potential and generate results for the company.

Keeping your professionals updated

Many companies make the mistake of believing that business training only serves to train new employees.

Training should also be used to update professionals who have been with the company for a longer time with the best practices in the market and to ensure the constant improvement of their performance.

Aligning employees with company goals

For a company to achieve its goals, its employees must be aligned with the organizational strategic goals.

There’s no use in your employees to be the best at what they do, if their actions are not contributing to the achievement of the goals established for your business, right?

Optimizing processes and correct work routine failures

On a day-to-day basis, amidst various activities and tight schedules, it can be difficult to correct failures or implement changes to optimize employee actions.

Training is the ideal opportunity to show what can be done to improve, present solutions and increase team performance.

Online or on-site training?

Business training can be both online as well as on-site.

In order for you to find the ideal model for your business, let’s talk about the advantages and disadvantages of each one.

On-site training

This training format is the most common, since the implementation of distance education in the organizational environment is still relatively recent.

Advantages

The advantages are:

Opportunity for interaction between employees

Because it is performed in a physical environment, on-site training allows employees to interact, exchange information, experiences and knowledge. Especially in larger companies with many departments, this can be one of the only moments of interaction between employees in different teams.

The possibility to clear doubts in real time

During the training program questions may arise or an employee might want to make comments to enrich the course.

The on-site format allows this occur in real time, which prevents doubts from being forgotten or communication from being unilateral.

Environment conducive to dynamics

Another advantage of on-site training is the possibility of creating practical dynamics.

With all staff gathered in the same space, the instructor can propose group activities to break the ice and show the practical application of the knowledge being transmitted.

Disadvantages

Although it is the most common model, on-site training has certain flaws in its application. Below are the main ones.

Difficulty in reconciling schedules

In order to conduct on-site training, all employees must be available at the same time. In companies with a lean team this might be easy, but in organizations with many employees it can take a long time to reconcile so many schedules.

Expenses with the rent of space, equipment and food

Few are the businesses that have a large and suitable space for training. Most of the time it is necessary to rent rooms or auditoriums to accommodate all employees. In addition to space, resources such as projectors, charts, printed materials, and food for the participants are needed.

Participant tiredness

In on-site training, the breaks are not made individually, which means that all employees have to follow the same pace, which increases the chances of this format being more tiring and exhausting for the participants.

Online training

Companies, regardless of their segment, are increasingly connected to the internet and this has greatly increased the demand for the online model to conduct the training programs. Below are a few features of this model.

Advantages

Check out the benefits of adopting the EAD model in your training programs.

Practicality

Online business training is easy to develop because it only requires the person with the knowledge, a platform to host the content and the tools necessary to write or record the material.

Savings

The online model, in addition to being practical, is economical. There is no need to spend money renting space, coffee breaks, transportation and technological resources to teach.

If the training program is in video format for example, the company will only need a computer, a camera, a microphone and the Internet. Employees, on the other hand, will be able to access all content directly from their own computer, smartphone or tablet.

The content has a broader reach

To provide internal training online, it is necessary to develop the content only once and pass it on to multiple employees, as many times as necessary without the need to create it again. Unless, of course, there is a need for a process update.

Flexible hours

With online training, employees gain the freedom to carry out their training whenever it’s convenient, without having to go somewhere or interrupt other important work activities.

In addition, this format allows users to take breaks from the classes whenever they want to, which reduces fatigue and facilitates the absorption of information.

Disadvantages

Pay attention to the disadvantages of the online model to understand if it is right for your company.

Low engagement

Since employees are free to access the training program at any time without any kind of supervision, many may not feel motivated enough to dedicate themselves and engage with the content.

Little interaction

It is common in online training programs that participants interact less than in on-site training programs, since each person organizes his/her time and studies individually.

However, this disadvantage can be solved by creating forums and communities, which are found on most EAD platforms, including the Hotmart Club.

Difficulty in measuring the participants’ learning curve

In online training programs, the person responsible for the course and the participants are physically distant, which makes the process of measuring how the content is being absorbed by students more difficult.

The responsibility for learning ends up focusing on the employees, who need to engage and be dedicated to make good use of the material.

The step-by-step process to creating a business training program

Now that you’ve understood how business training works, it’s time to learn how to create the right training program for your business. Check out the steps.

1. Identify an organization’s demand

The first step in creating your content should be the identification of a need in the company so that the online training can be really useful and will add value to the organization.

The demand may arise from the implementation of a new work procedure or tool, from the creation of a new team or project, the identification of failures in a process, the arrival of new employees, the need to improve fluency in a language, or update employees, among others.

2. Define the general goal of the training program

One of the greatest difficulties for HR professionals and team leaders usually is showing management that internal training can interfere directly with employee production and therefore, company earnings.

Therefore, it is essential that the training program have an established general goal, so that it will be possible to create truly assertive content that bring the expected benefits and can be measured later.

3. Define your training program budget

Training programs cost varied amounts, depending on the technological resources and materials used.

Before you create a course for your employees, check how much you can spend and establish the budget for the training program. This makes it easier to know what to look for and what to invest in.

4. Establish a programming content

In order for the training program to be exactly as planned, it is critical to establish programmatic content.

To do so, you must develop a course roadmap and divide it into parts, keeping the information gathered by affinity or level of difficulty, for example.

The important thing is to define in advance the topics that will be covered, the tools necessary for the development of the classes, the information that cannot be forgotten, etc.

This planning helps you create sequential, complete, and truly valuable material.

5. Think about evaluations or dynamics for the participants

One of the ways to make the business training attractive and fluid is to develop dynamics to carry out with the participants. This way you turn the training into something interactive, which helps increase employee interest.

Creating evaluations can also be a good choice because, in addition to allowing you to verify that knowledge has been absorbed, it helps motivate participants.

6. Write or record the supporting material

To help employees understand and assimilate the content being shared, create supporting material, which can be complementary texts, e-books, demo videos or infographics with tutorials, the format will depend on your goal.

How to extract all the benefits from the business training program

The goal of all training programs is to optimize processes and work routines; therefore, measuring the day to day results within the company is indicated.

An effective way to measure is to observe if after the training there has been a reduction in production time and costs. To do so, it is necessary to have information from the period prior to the training, to make a comparison and to check if there was improvement or worsening in the indicators.

Another important factor to be measured is the level of employee satisfaction. Listening to what they have to say about what they have learned and how they are applying the content in their activities is essential to knowing what has worked and what can be improved.

To find out if they are adapting the knowledge to their work routines or if they have noticed gains in productivity, for example, periodic feedback can be provided, according to the company’s demand.

Now that you’ve realized how important it is to invest in business training, how about setting up your own online course to train teams? Check out our post on how to plan and define a complete course plan.