Pandemic Is The Reason To Train Employees More, Not Less
Equipping employees to cope with changes is essential to normalize operations and grow your business.
The pandemic forced many companies to review their priorities. Post-pandemic, companies need more funds to maintain normal operations. So, budgets are reallocated from areas considered less urgent. One such casualty of COVID19 is staff training and development.
Some consider training as a discretionary expenditure rather than essential spending. So, when a company needs to cut cost, the training budget is one of the first candidates.
Training for Recovery and Growth
When the pandemic struck, we all agreed that the priority was to address the crisis. But, as the companies are recovering from the crisis, the objectives are to normalize the operations first and then move to the growth phase. Skilled employees are essential to realizing the growth in these difficult times.
Training for Managing Change
Besides, in a changing business environment, the employees need new skills to perform well. Let us take the example of sales. We all agree that sales is a critical function for all commercial organizations. But the social distancing guidelines restrict the opportunity of the sales team to move door to door. The solution is to sell more online. But, the sales team may not have online selling skills. The company needs to train the sales team to develop their online selling skills.
Skill and will determines success while working remotely
The pandemic has forced many of us to work from home. Remote working implies that there is minimal supervision. It means that the company is giving the employee more autonomy. In other words, supervisors tend to delegate more when employees work from home.
Delegation works when the employee has the right technical competencies and high level of commitment. In other words, skill and will are the factors that determine success. The question is: Do your employees have the skills for delivering excellent performance?
Chances are, the employees need more training to perform the tasks autonomously. So, to promote performance excellence, companies need to train their staff, even when they are still recovering from the effects of the pandemic.
You can Train even when Social Distancing Norms are in Place
Even with social distancing, companies can train staff in several ways. The methodologies are very much known to most of us.
1. Online training: There are plenty of training programs and platforms available online. These include well known international platforms such as udemy.com or coursera.com
2. Webinars: Webinars are now a common method of training. You can make such training- webinars interactive using quizzes, polls, break-out sessions and brainstorming sessions.
3. Learning Management System: You can upload the training programs on to the LMS platform, and the employees can pursue you a self-managed training plan. LMS can support administration, tracking and reporting of training programs.
Future Options Consulting offers a range of training programs for its clients in the African markets. Please contact us at info@futureoptions.org for more information.
