Mastering Employee Training Programs: Top Types & Pro Tips

What is Employee Training & Development?

Employee training and development are essential for enhancing skills, boosting performance, and supporting career growth.

Training focuses on immediate skill needs through structured programs, while development emphasizes long-term growth through mentoring, coaching, and leadership initiatives, preparing employees for future roles and responsibilities.

Need for Training and Development for Employees

Training and development are essential for bridging the gap between employees' current skills and the demands of their roles or future aspirations. Different types of training and development programs, such as technical training, leadership development, and soft skills enhancement, drive personal and professional growth, improve performance, and foster innovation. These initiatives also help create a culture of continuous learning and adaptability, ensuring the workforce remains competitive in a rapidly evolving business environment.

Different Types of Training for Employees in 2024

The different types of employee training are as follows

Leadership Training

Leadership training develops crucial interpersonal and leadership skills, including communication, project management, and mentoring. It significantly improves team dynamics and performance by incorporating crisis management and relevant technical skills, ensuring leaders are well-prepared.

Compliance Training

Compliance training is essential for all employees, covering legal, safety, and security requirements specific to each company. It ensures adherence to guidelines such as OSHA regulations and addresses both job-specific and broader issues like office security. The training is tailored to meet each organization's unique needs.

Onboarding Training

Onboarding training introduces new hires to essential tools, communication practices, and support resources for their initial weeks. It focuses on core information to avoid overload and provides ongoing access to details via resources like a company wiki. This ensures a smooth transition into their roles.

Technical Training

Technical training educates employees on using specific tools or technology required for their roles, such as software or devices. The duration varies based on complexity, ranging from brief sessions to more extensive, in-depth programs.

Product Training

Product training educates employees on the features and benefits of the company’s offerings, focusing on unique selling points and common customer questions. It ensures that sales, customer service, and product teams understand the company's products for effective internal use and customer interactions, without emphasizing sales techniques.

Sales Training

Sales training builds on product knowledge by focusing on marketing, selling techniques, and handling objections. It emphasizes showcasing unique features and advocating for the product, often using role-playing to develop practical skills for effective promotion and sales.

Anti-bias and Diversity Training

Anti-bias and diversity training fosters respectful interactions by emphasizing soft skills and understanding. It covers advocacy, harassment reporting, and handling discrimination, using scenarios and interactive quizzes to promote a safe and inclusive workplace.

Top 10 Various Corporate Training Programs

Training programs vary depending on the size of your organization. Here are the top 10 in-demand types of training programs for employees

1. Orientation Training

Gallup reports only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization excels at onboarding, which hinders emotional connection and retention. Effective orientation training, using advanced technology and interactive methods, immerses new hires in company culture, roles, and structure, crucially shaping a positive experience and setting the stage for long-term success.

Benefits of orientation training

• Faster employee adaptation: Helps new hires quickly understand company culture and roles.

• Improved engagement: Uses technology and activities to make learning more engaging and memorable.

Pro Tip

Incorporate interactive elements like virtual tours and gamified quizzes in your orientation training to engage new hires and reinforce key concepts, ensuring a smoother transition into your company culture and roles.

2. Onboarding Training

Onboarding training introduces new employees to essential tools, communication practices, and resources, focusing on their initial experience without overwhelming them. It ensures a smooth start with ongoing support through accessible resources like a company wiki, which is "crucial since a bad hire can cost up to 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings.

Benefits of onboarding training

Accelerated Productivity

• A well-structured onboarding program helps new hires quickly reach full productivity by providing clear expectations and role-specific training.

Stronger Company Alignment

• Effective onboarding fosters a sense of belonging and ensures new employees align with company values and culture from the start.

Pro tip

The four Cs of onboarding are

• Culture

• Connection

• Clarification

• Compliance

Adding a fifth C, Collaboration, enhances onboarding by helping new hires connect, understand company culture, and solve problems with peers, making the process more effective and engaging, including compliance.

3. Compliance Training

Compliance training equips employees with crucial safety, security, and legal knowledge, tailored to their roles and industry, ensuring efficient and lawful operations. According to compliance officers, 58% are focused on fostering a compliant culture, 51% on setting risk appetite, and 48% on assessing corporate governance effectiveness.

Benefits of compliance training

Risk Mitigation

• Compliance training reduces the risk of legal and ethical violations by ensuring employees are well-informed about laws and company policies.

Enhanced Organizational Culture

• Interactive and engaging compliance training fosters a culture of accountability and respect, building trust both internally and with customers.

Pro tip

Compliance training often involves dull rules and regulations, but you can make it engaging through gamification. Add interactive elements like quizzes, points, levels, and leaderboards to encourage learners to actively participate and compete, transforming the training into a more enjoyable experience.

4. Product Training

The product-based sales training market is projected to reach US $2.45 billion from 2024 to 2028. Product training equips employees with essential knowledge of features, benefits, and unique selling points, supporting both internal and customer-facing roles. Unlike sales training, it emphasizes product understanding over selling techniques.

Benefits of product training

Enhanced Customer Experience

• Comprehensive product training enables employees to effectively communicate product benefits, confidently handle inquiries, and provide tailored solutions, leading to better customer satisfaction.

Flexible and Scalable Training

• Online simulations and hands-on workshops offer cost-effective, adaptable training options that accommodate diverse schedules, ensure consistency, and provide risk-free learning opportunities.

Pro tip

Enhance product training with a mobile learning solution, enabling sales and customer education teams to access courses anytime, anywhere. This convenience helps employees stay updated and informed by reviewing facts or new product features on the go.

5. Leadership Training

80% of executives prioritize strengthening leadership, recognizing its impact on communication, project management, and mentoring. Leadership training hones these skills, preparing employees for management roles and complementing career coaching. This approach not only develops effective leaders but also enhances employee retention.

Benefits of leadership training

Enhanced Leadership Skills

• Training in communication, decision-making, and change management equips leaders to navigate challenges and drive success.

Effective Development Tools

• Interactive e-learning and progress tracking offer personalized learning for continuous improvement in a dynamic business environment.

Pro tip

To make leadership training effective, outline business goals and identify skill gaps. Use self-assessments and feedback to determine training needs, then create a plan. For example, if both a manager and their team highlight a need for conflict resolution, prioritize training in that area.

6. Technical Training

Technical training equips employees with the skills to use workplace technology or tools, ranging from brief sessions to extended, in-depth courses based on the complexity of the software or equipment involved.

Benefits of technical training

Enhances Competitiveness

• Equips employees with essential tech skills to adapt to new technologies and streamline processes, providing a competitive edge.

Boosts Employee Confidence

• Improves job satisfaction and productivity by increasing employees’ confidence through the acquisition of new technical skills.

Pro tip

Ensure your technical training meets its objectives by evaluating its effectiveness with employee feedback, questionnaires, quizzes, and assessments. This approach helps maximize the return on investment (ROI) from your training programs.

7. Sales Training

Sales training, conducted online by 81% of organizations, enhances product knowledge by teaching employees to emphasize key selling points, tackle challenging customer questions, and promote unique features. It focuses on practical skills, with role-playing exercises preparing teams for effective product marketing and sales.

Benefits of sales training

Enhances sales skills

• Improves negotiation, product understanding, and deal-closing abilities.

Strengthens customer relations

• Boosts skills in managing relationships and handling objections.

Pro tip

Leverage sales professionals' expertise to create courses based on real experiences, ensuring practical, relevant training. This approach fosters continuous learning and improvement, building a culture of ongoing development.

8. Soft-Skills Training

The soft skills training market is projected to grow by US $315.6 million at a CAGR of 50.98% between 2023 & 2028. As AI and automation advance, companies increasingly prioritize soft skills like communication, teamwork, and emotional intelligence through interactive e-learning and virtual workshops to boost performance in a tech-driven workplace.

Benefits of soft skills training

Boosts Team Performance

• Improves communication, teamwork, and emotional intelligence for better collaboration.

Supports Remote Learning

• Uses interactive modules and virtual workshops to develop soft skills effectively from any location.

Pro tip

Leverage interactive e-learning and virtual workshops for effective soft-skills training. These methods boost communication and teamwork, crucial for success in a tech-driven workplace while supporting remote learning.

9. Team Training

Investing in team training boosts performance by uniting diverse talents through problem-solving workshops and team-building activities. Inclusive communication, including active listening and diverse perspectives, is vital for effective teamwork. Platforms like Disprz enhance training with interactive, social learning features, improving team effectiveness in today's complex business landscape.

Benefits of team-based training

Problem-Solving Workshops

• These sessions place teams in simulated scenarios, improving problem-solving skills and fostering trust among members.

Team-Building Activities

• Activities outside of work help break down barriers and enhance open communication, strengthening team unity.

Pro Tip

Use problem-solving workshops to refine product strategies and team-building activities to enhance cross-functional collaboration, ensuring your product development aligns with market needs and fosters a cohesive, innovative team environment.

10. Diversity Training

The global Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) market, valued at US$9.3 billion in 2022, is expected to grow to US $15.4 billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 12.6%. Anti-bias and diversity training equips employees with essential skills for fostering a respectful and inclusive workplace, using real-life scenarios and interactive quizzes.

Benefits of diversity training

Fosters an Inclusive Work Environment

• Enhances understanding and respect among employees, promoting a culture where everyone feels valued.

Drives Innovation

• Diverse perspectives boost creativity and problem-solving, leading to increased revenues from innovative ideas.

Pro tip

Diversity training works best in a safe, empathetic environment. Anonymously gather and present experiences of bias to emphasize their prevalence, and offer asynchronous learning to allow employees to process sensitive topics at their own pace.

Conclusion

Investing in diverse training programs is crucial for bridging skill gaps and boosting employee performance. By tailoring training to cover leadership, compliance, onboarding, and more, you enhance productivity and retention.

Book a personalized demo with Disprz to explore how our learning platform can elevate your training strategy and drive success.