This is part 3 of a 4-part series of blogs to help Learning & Development practitioners. If you missed the previous articles, here are the links:
Today I want to share some thoughts about the training plan.
The plan is important
Your job, as part of the Learning and Development team, is to support the business in two important ways:
- You make sure people can do their work.
Knowledge becomes outdated and forgotten. Companies invest in training to make sure their human resources stay valuable. The better a person can do the job, the greater an asset he or she is to the company. - You make sure people want to do their work.
It doesn't help if a person is good at the job, but doesn't want to do it. One way to keep developers happy is to give them opportunities to learn and develop new skills.
These are important responsibilities. And that's why the training plan is so important.
It doesn't end with the plan
But what actually happens to the plan? Does it get developed and then forgotten? Do you leave it to the employee or manager to tell you when the training on the plan should take place?
Recently I’ve had three clients come to me with the same problem: they needed training before the end of the year. And that was a problem. Because at the time, there were only 7 training weeks left in the year. And, of course, other clients had already booked courses. In all three cases, the client had known for months that they needed the training.
I know that you don’t have control over a developer's schedule. And sometimes, a project crisis creates havoc with course dates. But you still have to work the plan.
Remember that training should be your focus, not the developers. Developers are worried about their code and their deadlines. They don’t think about training until it’s urgent, or some-one reminds them.
If you wait until training is urgent, you will have to find a last-minute solution. That’s no fun, and it can limit your options. That's why you need to monitor the training plan.
This actually works
Here’s a secret: if you schedule the training in advance, it is more likely to go ahead as planned.
Let me share an example. We have a client who books group training many months in advance. Since the pandemic started, that client has only postponed 1 out of 19 courses. And that’s during the pandemic, with people working from home. So you see, it is possible.
Planning is important. But you can't just plan. You also have to track the plan and make sure it is executed.
Did this help? I'd love you to reply if you have any questions or comments about what I've written.