Professional Training and Development Myths Debunked

by Team Userlane

6 years ago ・ 9 min.

As a L&D professional, you know there are many reasons to further invest in professional training programs at your company.

For one, employee training programs help facilitate employee growth within the company, allowing your business to scale appropriately and remain competitive in the market.

Another important reason to develop a structured employee training program is to increase employee motivation and job satisfaction among employees, curbing employee turnover.

Given that 76% of millennials believe that professional development opportunities are one of the most important elements of company culture, it is not a surprise that modern companies have shown more interest in staff training and internal employee development.

After all, most successful businesses already have well established learning and development programs within the company.

However, there might be challenges holding you back from improving your already established employee training program.

1. Overcoming Challenges with Professional Training and Development

Employee training has historically carried some negative connotations due to the fact that it isn’t always easy to see or understand the return on investment.

The lack of instant ROI in modern employee training can develop into a Catch 22 situation.

Businesses feel that employees aren’t properly utilizing training methods already in place.

Employees feel that training methods are outdated, not applicable for their job position, or do not fit with their particular learning style.

Here are 3 common challenges organizations and employees face.

Global Workforce Management 

A multinational business faces multinational challenges, and not just with employment law.

For training managers, global workforce management can be one of the greatest challenges because of the variety of languages and cultural issues that may arise.

How can you deliver the same quality training for a global audience and know that it was successful?

What was a successful training in one country may not have the same results in another.

Knowing who your learning audience is and what your objective will be before implementing trainings will help get the right message across.

Lack of Contemporary Professional Training 

Digitization in the workplace has directly transformed the modern employee experience.

Thanks to advancements in technology, certain aspects of work have become more efficient than ever before.

If the modern employee is expected to operate in a technologically advanced capacity, why aren’t employee training methods held to the same standard?

Overall, standard employee training methods have not caught up to modern learning. Too often, training and development teams believe that instant software adoption can happen through asynchronous elearning techniques such as video tutorials or ebooks.

Not only are these inefficient training methods in general, they also prove to be unsuccessful methods in retaining information in general.

These methods fail to account for the forgetting curve which means that no matter how many new classes or videos you create, information will still not resonate with employees unless there is real experience involved. Without enforcing a`learning by doing´ technique, much of the training efforts are left with minimal results.

Training is Expensive 

According to Forbes and a recent training report, there was about approximately $1,200 of training costs were spent per employee.

Unfortunately, some small and mid-sized businesses do not find the value in investing this much money in each employee, especially at a business where there is a high turnover rate.

While eLearning has substantially decreased training costs over the past years, the shelf life of these materials quickly expires as soon as there is an update in software or in a process. Unfortunately, reusing elearning materials isn’t a viable option for most training teams, nor is it scalable for the business.

Standardizing learning material across the entire organization is one way to keep extra training costs from arising.

It also promotes the same learning outcomes from each individual employee, regardless of their background, in order to standardize performance.

Build a Learning Culture  

Opportunities for growth within a business is partly the reason why certain business are better at attracting and retaining top talent. It is a lot easier to promote learning and professional development when it has already been established in the company culture.

For example, Google has a program which allows their employees to pursue their own interests outside of work.

One of the reasons Google supports this kind of personal development program is because they believe that learning is no longer a one step action which occurs during work hours.

They show their commitment to the employee’s drive in life just as much as their employees show their commitment to the workplace.

In turn, this creates highly motivated employees and increased satisfaction in the workplace (on top of great products that spawned from side-projects, employees worked on) .

Perhaps your business may not have the ability to implement the same program as Google at the moment. Nonetheless, there are still plenty of other opportunities for employees to explore learning and personal development with the support of the business.

This is why building a training program based on a culture of learning in the workplace will result in higher employee engagement, as well as higher knowledge retention.

Additionally, a learning culture transforms how professional training is administered and received within the business, providing better insight into the different learning cultures present.

This method also provides accurate insights from different styles of learning, such as micro-learning and gamification, allowing to understand what kind of learning works best for your employees.

2. Common Myths with Professional Training

An employee who do not access some sort of professional training development within his or her career usually finds him or herself in a less than desirable position: stagnant career, limited opportunities, and low motivation regardless of their previous motivation or experience.

Despite the challenges which accompany professional training, continuous learning is a proven benefit for employees and company alike.

The team at findcourses addresses the common challenges head-on by debunking the 10 most common myths associated with professional training.

Using their own research as well as data from LinkedIn Learning, ATD, and many others, findcourses.com has identified the most prominent training myths and discredited them.

From “Microlearning is not as effective as long-form training” to “Learning stops outside the classroom”, this infographic is able to demonstrate the true ROI as a result of practical training methods.

Check out the infographic below to find out the truth on establishing a true learning culture within your business and how to overcome the challenges that arise along the way.

If you are interested in reading more about learning and development strategy, download our ebook on software adoption here.