When you have a smaller team or organization, every decision you make is an impactful one. You have to delicately balance time considerations, ensure each employee has the skills they need to fit into the team, and focus on maximizing your retention rates.
Of course, there’s a right way to accomplish these things — and some not as effective ones. Let’s look at some common employee training pitfalls among smaller teams:
- Not having a training program at all
- Providing one-size-fits-all training
- Overloading employees with too much information
- Assuming you don’t need an e-learning system
- Neglecting to engage with your employees
Along the way, we’ll also cover how to avoid these common employee training pitfalls!
Not having a training program at all
You might think of employee training programs as something that only big companies have or need. In reality, it’s the opposite; small teams need high-quality employee training even more! In all likelihood, each employee is performing a vital role right now where you can’t afford mistakes, and you also want to enable them to grow with the company.
A training program lets team members hone their existing skills and gain new ones that can lead to promotions and career growth. Investing in your employees’ success now means investing in the company’s continued future success.
Providing training and upskilling also ensures that your team has the skills to fill in the gaps when an employee takes time off or between one employee leaving and a new hire coming on board.
Providing one-size-fits-all training
When you make the decision to shop around for a training solution, you’ll probably find some generic options that will provide basic, non-personalized training — whether it’s in the form of a live seminar or webinar, online courses, offsite training retreat, or something else. Generic options typically aren’t a great choice for small teams. Because each team member has different responsibilities and skill requirements, you’ll want to invest in a training solution that adapts to their needs. You also can’t afford to waste time on unnecessary training.
For companies in the AEC and manufacturing space, Pinnacle Series is the perfect solution. With our built-in skills assessments, employees can quickly identify course information they can skip (because they already know it) and which modules they need to work on. With a mix of written and video content, Pinnacle Series training content also supports different learning styles.
Overloading employees with too much information
When organizations handle their employee training by scheduling training days or sending teams to attend long seminars, they face a problem: information retention. The human brain can only absorb so much information at one time! Making employees spend hours or days in training won’t be as effective since they’re likely to forget most of the information afterward.
Providing routine, bite-sized lessons and on-demand resources is a much better way to train. In a recent LinkedIn survey, three-quarters of employees said they would ideally like to learn during their spare time at work. With the short-form, searchable content in Pinnacle Series, ten minutes is all a person needs to learn something new.
Assuming you don’t need an e-learning system
In the 21st century, e-learning is unquestionably the best way to train your teams. Since it’s all online in the cloud, your staff can learn anywhere, even if they’re working remotely or on a job site. They can easily look up information on an as-needed basis and pursue more in-depth training when they have more time.
Furthermore, dedicated e-learning systems often include features beyond just training content. For example, Pinnacle Series is a full-featured knowledge management platform that lets you create your own custom content, share standards and best practices, collaborate in Work Groups, and more. It goes beyond learning to give your team the tools they need to reduce errors and work efficiently!
Neglecting to engage with your employees
In a small team, everyone is important, and their opinions are all valuable. Make sure to take their feedback into account as you roll out your new training system! Do they like it? What are their favorite or least favorite features? Do they understand how to use it and make the most of it? When you choose Pinnacle Series, our team is always available to answer questions and provide resources to help introduce our platform to your organization and use it to reach your business goals.
Ready to enjoy an AEC e-learning experience free from all these common employee training pitfalls? Reach out for a demo or free trial of Pinnacle Series today!
If you’re already a Pinnacle Series customer, log in now to check out some of the features that can benefit small teams, like Work Groups and reporting tools.
