The days of “learn it the old way first” are gone. Digitization is rapidly revamping how we learn and how we bring new knowledge into our daily workflows. Trainers face various challenges, including budget cuts and imparting vast amounts of knowledge in short periods of time. Wouldn’t it be nice to make life a little easier? By optimizing training processes you can save time, money, and your trainer’s sanity!
Tackling the cost of training
The total spend on training in the U.S. in 2018 was $87.6 billion, with an average of $986 spent per-employee. Yet 65% of field service training is already outdated, meaning additional training will definitely be needed down the line to cover what’s missing. So where’s your training budget really going?
The truth is that it’s not just the glaringly obvious costs that impact your bottom line — it’s the small expenditures that eventually all add up. For example, the cost of training classroom materials (e.g. paper manuals, printing, folders) or the cost of a dip in productivity as new hires “learn the ropes” from co-workers and mentors. An easy and quick way to address those “hidden” types of costs it to see where automation could step in to smooth the path ahead.
Take a look at your current training processes and consider the following:
– Is printing training paperwork absolutely necessary — how much does it currently cost?
– How can I ensure that my field teams have easy access to training manuals?
– How many hours are spent evaluating training exams – could this process be optimized?
Speed up training evaluation and sign-off processes
The last thing you need when you arrive on site is to discover that someone’s training certificate is out-of-date, or worse, it hasn’t been signed-off yet. On top of that, there’s the risk of paperwork going missing, potentially opening a can of worms for compliance if a surprise inspection happens, right? Sigh. What are you supposed to do, miles away from the office?!
This is where cloud-based employee training management software steps in – it allows you to see where every important document is throughout the process, as well as giving you peace-of-mind in knowing that documents are securely stored and easily accessible. You can also request and receive supervisor and trainee signatures in real-time, ensuring all training has been officially signed-off.
Bonus: Come audit time, you’ll be sitting pretty with all your regulatory training certificates and documents instantly available for inspection; and all conveniently located in one secure place.
Training for the future
You’ve invested a lot of time, money, and resources in assembling your current team. Providing opportunities for upskilling and diversifying their skill set enables you to leverage a return on that investment year after year.
As little as a 10% increase in workforce education/training can lead to an 8.6% increase in productivity, so it’s no wonder global companies like Siemens Gamesa are thinking ahead and adopting digital training software to help them optimize their training processes.
Siemens Gamesa utilized the power of automation and employee training management to address logistical challenges training their offshore teams. Inefficient processes, coupled with the cost and impracticality of having paper manuals, pushed the company to seek training software solutions that could solve the problem and scale alongside an ever-growing offshore team.
Since implementing digital logbooks and e-signature workflows for web-based employee training, Siemens Gamesa has streamlined the deployment and management of over 400 offshore workers, as well as saving significant amounts of time and money. They have also ensured that job-specific knowledge can be easily documented and securely stored in the employee training software, ready to be shared with future new hires.
