Ever look at your team and wonder why they’re wasting time on non-critical tasks? Though you need everyone focused on the right priorities, too often employees misunderstand corporate goals and processes. Or worse yet—they forget to follow your well-crafted compliance policies altogether. Left unaddressed, these present both financial and regulatory risks that could easily cripple your business. Here’s how to get your staff working as a cohesive team, fully compliant—and aligned with your corporate goals.
Train Employees to Align on Corporate Goals
The most recent Deloitte University Press study of employers found only 24% thought they were excellent at “aligning employee and personal goals with corporate purpose.” Yet, 78% of businesses say it’s “important or critical” that learning strategy is connected to business goals.
If this sounds like you, then taking a hard look at the structure of your employee training is the first step. From a technology perspective, this includes evaluating the need for a learning management system—or LMS—if you don’t already have one. From a strategy perspective, you’ll need to identify your corporate, department and leadership goals, then cascade them throughout your organization in meaningful and specific ways. This will ensure that staff time is spent on activities that elevate both short and long-term business objectives. Here are specific areas you should be targeting with your training strategy:
How to Align Individual and Corporate Goals
- Link L&D objectives to department goals
- Link L&D objectives to individual performance reviews
- Align L&D objectives with the needs of key business stakeholders
- Use a cascading set of goals that link corporate objectives to L&D objectives
- Identify competency and skills gaps, then align L&D objectives to address them
Source: Brandon Hall Learning Measurement 2018
Expect Measurable Benefits from Employee Alignment
The above alignment takes a lot of work, which is why many businesses don’t bother. But according to Training Industry, you have a lot to gain by ensuring the work your staff does throughout the year is actually driving towards identified business goals:
- Increased employee productivity
- Higher ROI on training investments
- Decreases in staff errors, mistakes and conflicts
- Better resource utilization
To be in a favorable position come December 31, you’ll need to take concrete steps right now.
How to Start Aligning Your Employees
After identifying business goals and aligning individual goals to drive towards them, the next step is to operationalize your learning program across your entire company. In-person training is one approach, though it can prove expensive, hard to track and lack the consistency you may be seeking. Using internal instructors takes your most knowledgeable and seasoned producers out of commission for some period of time, so you’ll need to plan for that. Alternatively, you can go the eLearning route by using a learning management system.
Why Train with an LMS
An LMS is a fantastic solution, as it enables you to apply the knowledge from your best people in customized learning courses and combine those with pre-made courses you buy from content library vendors like Skillsoft. These provide thousands of professionally produced courses on a host of topics and skills in frequent demand, including timely regulatory updates. This can save you months of trouble crafting content yourself. You can even pursue “blended learning” with an LMS, tracking online and in-person training all together in one place.
Ensure you get your team trained and productive quickly by loading course content in am LMS.You can further integrate your LMS with existing business applications like Namely and Workday; CRM systems like Salesforce; and even meeting applications like Zoom for any remote classes you offer. Doing so gives staff a single sign-on—only one password to remember for all your systems. The easier employees can access their learning, the more likely they are to participate on a regular basis.
To measure success, LMS tools offer both standard and custom business reports. Track the progress of individual learners and your learning program as a whole to see how improved skills impact the bottom line of your business.You’ll have clear visibility into learning outcomes for your entire organization. Whether spread across the globe in large sites or home offices, each worker will get the consistent training they need to excel.
Your company success depends on the success and commitment of your people. Ensure your team is trained, productive and engaged over time by aligning their work with the broader goals of your organization. Do so this year, and you’ll be striving for an even higher bar in 2020.
Learn About Absorb LMS
Absorb Learning Management System offers the employee engagement, intuitive experience and personalized support today’s companies deserve and expect. Talk to us to see if Absorb is the right LMS for you, or visit our website to experience Absorb live for yourself.
