Newsletter: Providing Optional Training for Employee Development and Company Success

Greetings!

A study by Middlesex University found that 74% of workers surveyed felt they were not achieving their full potential at work due to a lack of development opportunities. Employees want development opportunities and employers want well trained hires who excel in their roles. While these two objectives typically coincide, there are factors to consider when offering training as optional or required.

Optional training provides motivated employees with the resources they need to progress into a new or higher position. Seeing employees move from entry to senior level roles within a company is often a good indicator that the company treats employees fairly and has a healthy culture. But, optional training can take time away from an employee's regular work tasks. If you offer optional training, it's important to set expectations and guidelines. Read on to hear tips to ensure you are growing your employees' skill sets while at the same time ensuring company success.

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Quick Tips For Optional Training

Tip #1 - Set Expectations Early

If you are going to provide employees with access to optional training, be transparent about your expectations. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says, "This small step of carving out time to discuss expectations with employees typically leads to increased performance by each person in the organization and ultimately drives significantly improved top and bottom line results." Let employees know the amount of time that is acceptable to spend on optional training, what training they have access to, and what you expect them to achieve in the process. Each company will vary, but highlighting these expectations will help employees understand and stay within the boundaries, making it less likely they waste company time on training that isn't useful to their personal or professional growth within the organization.

Tip #2 - Encourage Employee Learning and Growth

Employees want to feel supported in their growth and development, so offering optional training is one way to accomplish this. In addition, having conversations that encourage employees to take the initiative to learn something new can motivate people to be top performers. When employees feel supported by management to pursue learning and growth, they become stronger assets to the company. Setting goals about personal and professional growth with a manager is shown to increase employee engagement. Gallup found that "72% of millennials who strongly agree that their manager helps them establish performance goals are engaged." Engaged employees are surprisingly hard to come by - only about a third in the U.S. are engaged.

Tip #3 - Limit Available Training if Necessary

In certain cases, optional training should be restricted or even avoided. For example, in safety-sensitive environments, offering training outside of someone's daily job description could lead to a safety or compliance risk. Similarly, labor laws in many states/countries are still struggling with addressing off-hours voluntary training, particularly for non-exempt employees.

Consider limiting training that is unrelated to an employee's role, or require employees to gain access with management permission. This can prevent employees from spending too much time learning skills that don't relate to their role and can also help management oversee potential safety, compliance or labor law issues. Perhaps more importantly, introducing this approval step also reinforces the benefits of the manager and employee jointly engaging in the employee's development.

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