In today’s world, the flow of work is unrelenting for employees. They are constantly juggling deadlines, responding to emails and messages, and attending meetings. This gives your workforce little time to engage in on-the-job training to develop their current skills or learn new ones.
On-the-job training (OJT) is the perfect strategy to improve employee skills to become more productive and efficient. It’s not always the conventional training process, but a much-needed relief. You not only gain a wide range of advantages with on-the-job training but also lower training costs and increase employee engagement.
According to the LinkedIn 2022 Workplace Learning Report, “68% of workers consider training and development opportunities an organization’s most important policy.”
Why should you consider on-the-job training methods for your employee development? What are the advantages it has for both your business & workforce? The blog will address all these questions and discuss how to implement it successfully at your workplace.
Why is On-the-job Training Important?
On-the-job training is explicit, well-defined, and provided at the place of employment. It engages employees in the workplace relevant to their roles, helping them learn and be productive. With on-the-job training methods, you can empower them to gain knowledge, technical proficiency, and work ethics.
The best on-the-job training is relevant, targeted, timely, helpful to employees, and packed with valuable information. On-the-job training is a better choice than spending on conferences, speakers, or shoddy paper manuals that might just sit around collecting dust. Do you know that 68% of employees prefer to learn at work? You can’t downplay the importance of on the job training for employers and employees.
Imagine you recruit Mike, a new sales executive who doesn’t know the basics of the product line, the sales process, and how to conduct demo sessions. He is a complete fresher and is just starting out. So, learning modules on how to move a deal in the sales pipeline help him develop the capabilities to perform exceptionally well in his role. You can empower your workforce by taking the guesswork out of the process and bridging relevant skill gaps.
Top 4 On-the-job Training Methods to Drive Employee Upskilling and Development
Did you know that 76% of the new employees want on-the-job training? You can actively increase the employee retention rate and organisational productivity with on the job training. Employers can approach OJT in a variety of ways because it combines complex concepts with numerous aspects, including motivation, knowledge, skills, and change of mindset.
1. Go for instructor led training
A training session led by an instructor for learners is known as instructor-led training (ILT). You can conduct ILT online so employees can interact with the instructor in real time for questions and answers.
Incorporating activities throughout the training session can make your instructor-led training sessions engaging for employees. It will keep your employees interested and ensure they retain the information if you switch between lectures, discussions, and activities. You can include ice breaking sessions to acquaint peers, conduct open polls, encourage group discussion, start a quiz, etc.
Using this approach, a few instructors can facilitate learning at various locations. It’s a terrific opportunity to give your employees new roles and responsibilities. With instructor-led training, you can establish:
- Open Dialogue: Access to instructors for immediate feedback.
- Adaptability: The instructor can evaluate employee performance in real time and adjust the curriculum.
- Engaging and Interactive: You can engage employees with activities, quizzes, and interactions.
- Build a Network: Give the employees an environment to interact, learn, form bonds, and develop as a team.
- Distraction-Free Environment: A dedicated learning environment can reduce distractions for your employees and boost retention.
2. With personalized skill development. See more. Do more.
In the era of superfluous information floating everywhere, the hurdles for learners are manifold. It appears to be a massive effort for your employees to choose the appropriate areas to concentrate on, study relevant information from a variety of sources, integrate the learning based on one approach, and then apply it to the last.
Organisations can significantly impact employee engagement and retention with personalised skill development. Did you know that nearly 70% of organizations stated that they drive personalized skills training prescriptively to the learner? It’s a significant differentiator as it optimises the learning pace and the instructional style according to the requirements of each employee.
The curated pull-based learning is relevant to employees, motivated by their interests, and frequently self-initiated, fostering a culture of continual learning. When businesses and employees continuously search for the proper match, a customised, personalised learning experience for employees is a game changer.
Personalised skill development training enables the workforce to perform their job more efficiently. Additionally, it raises staff engagement, which boosts productivity.
3. Learning through role-playing scenarios
Role-playing has long been used as a way of learning. Many of us use role-playing as an essential life skill without even realizing it. Every time we imagine the future in a hypothetical “what if” situation, we engage in the form of role-playing.
When putting ourselves in a hypothetical situation where, despite not being able to control the outcome, we can foresee the circumstances and “practice” our performance in an effort to affect the outcome. Role-playing is a flexible and powerful tool that can be used in a learning environment. This scenario is a great example of the adage, “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.” It is frequently used to clarify a theory and bring concepts together into a practical experience.
It also enhances a person’s knowledge and experience by considering their course of action in a particular circumstance. It allows the learner to put themselves in a situation or make one up to practice for future interaction. Managers can benefit from role-playing on a daily basis and in developing management proficiency in the majority, if not all, of the skills managers require today.
It reduces the distinction between thought and action. For instance, the sales associate who is instructed in customer service receives extensive training for welcoming and interacting with customers in a variety of situations. For the various customer interactions they encounter, the responses become more routine with time.
4. Track progress with rich analytics
Analytics helps you see beyond the clutter and evaluate training effectiveness by quantifying employee engagement & outcomes. By examining factors like learned competencies, the challenges most learners experience, or the amount of time spent in training, you can determine how successfully your L&D efforts are progressing.
Learning analytics provide a wealth of insightful data on how learners interact with course modules. It gives quick facts about their growth and accomplishments, including information like how much time each person spends on finishing a course, among other things. It offers you the flexibility to alter the course’s content, objectives, or duration to increase the effectiveness of your training.
Analytics are tied to course-specific competencies. L&D professionals can incorporate particular abilities while creating and executing training programs. For instance, a time management course may cover prioritizing, planning, and writing skills effectively. Once these competencies are included in the course, they are linked to the assignments and assessments that employees need to pass to complete them.
On-the-job training vs. off-the-job training: The most effective way for employee training?
Both terms are self-explanatory, as on-the-job training is provided virtually, and off-the-job training takes place while the trainees are away from the work environment. Let’s check out on-the-job vs off-the-job training, which is more efficient.
In off-the-job training, the real-time work is put to a halt at that time, and the focus is simply on training. This contributes nothing to the actual productivity during the training period. The on-the-job training helps businesses impart training in the flow of work without hampering performance.
Because the company’s supervisors can conduct it virtually to deliver training, “on-the-job” training methods are simple and less expensive than off-the-job training methods, which require a completely different setup. Here, instruction is provided in a different environment, and consultants from outside are hired for the purpose.
While off-the-job training techniques are more general in nature, on-the-job training focuses on learning the best practices for completing a specific task and getting the job done. Undoubtedly, in this match of on-the-job vs off-the-job training, on-the-job training methods are a more effective and cost-effective way to train employees.
On-the-job training is tested & approved!
When it comes to on-the-job training, there is a compelling case for using a learning experience platform (LXP) as it connects learners to business-aligned content and skilling experiences. It helps build the skills the company requires through personalised, engaging, and intuitive learning experiences.
On-the-job training methods frequently combine real-world situations with a variety of content formats to help employees gain in-depth knowledge of their focus areas and amplify their performance levels. Did you know that 95% of people are more likely to retain information when conveyed via video than text? This is not a drill; on-the-job training equips your staff for immediate engagement wherever required.
By matching your goals with training activities, an online content repository, and practical training opportunities across multiple platforms, Disprz can assist you in determining precisely what you want to achieve with your on-the-job training.
