Top Three Questions to Ask Before Setting up Your L&D Program

1. Based on your organization’s goals, what skills are needed?

Align training with organization goals to establish a successful learning program. According to a Brandon Hall group study, 70% of companies that tie training to goals see an increase in profits. But, how can an organization actually do this?

The first step is to examine your core values and strategic goals and map core competencies for employees. In other words, based on core values and goals, are there any skills that all employees should have? For instance, Zappos has a strong inherent culture of providing excellent customer service; their mantra is even “Powered by Service.” To meet this goal, all employees undergo an intense customer service training program that includes shadowing experienced customer service representatives and learning best practices. Additionally, are there any skills that specific teams need?

Once you identify what skills are needed, you can start selecting content based on these core competencies that will achieve organization goals. For example, if your organization has the goal of providing excellent customer service, you might have an internal objective of responding to all support requests within 24 hours. In order to achieve this goal, relevant teams should have customer service training and communication skills. When browsing for content that can accomplish this, you might select courses like Excellence in Customer Service or Communicating on the Phone.

2. What metrics will you use to measure success?

Define the expectations for your training program for various stakeholders. What does your training audience expect? What does management expect? These metrics should be a combination of both quantitative and qualitative points. For example, quantitative metrics would include sales performance change and the effect on company turnover. Qualitative metrics would include learner response to courses and whether they feel that they apply training to their work. Creating metrics to evaluate your training program will help you determine whether your program is actually accomplishing its goals and will also help with measuring ROI.

3. What resources do you need for training?

Delve deep into answering this question to set a strong foundation for your program. Go beyond the financial considerations! Understand what IT resources you will need. Do you need to allocate workstations just for training? Do you have adequate IT support in the event that courses don’t work?

Consider what communication platforms your organization has and how you can leverage them to promote training. For instance, does your organization have slack or another internal communication platform? If so, consider creating a channel on it for training purposes and regularly post updates and questions to gather feedback. If your organization has an intranet, would you be able to post learning updates on an already existing page or a new one? Determine who will be responsible for communications.

Identify what additional budget you may have for promoting elearning. For example, you may want to run a contest to incentivize learners by rewarding the department with the greatest participation. You may want to also motivate learners through prizes depending on your organization’s culture. By identifying what resources you have before beginning training, you can maximize these opportunities to create a successful learning program.

Creating a successful training program requires preparation. Answering these three questions can help you determine the objectives of your program, justify the program to those controlling budget and resources in your organization, as well as maximize your resources to increase learner utilization. You will be also be able to create a dialogue at your organization about what a successful learning program looks like. Naturally, the next step is developing your training program! As the leading provider of elearning courses, OpenSesame offers flexible options to maximize your budget, over 20,000 off-the-shelf courses, and compatibility with every LMS.