Create effective training pathways and guide your talent on the road to success!

The business world is undergoing a number of upheavals, and doing well in the face of fierce competition has become a daily challenge! One way of doing this? Relying on the best talent.

By hiring the right people, you might ask? In reality, given the current recruitment difficulties and the time spent "onboarding" new recruits, the operation is not always profitable. The other solution is to rely on existing employees, by upgrading their skills through well thought-out training programmes.

How do you go about developing these training programmes effectively? By following the 6 steps below and relying on the right tools, such as LMS platforms. 💡

See all software Learning Management System (LMS)

Defining the training path

A training path defines, as it were, the path, strewn with pitfalls of educational modules, that the employee must travel to acquire their new knowledge and skills. As with any itinerary, it moves towards the arrival point in stages, in a logical and gradual way. 👣

Each training path is made up of various learning methods and targets specific pedagogical objectives, with the aim of increasing skills. For example:

• improving communication skills ;
• mastering specific software ;
• developing leadership skills
• learning to manage projects, etc.

As mentioned in the introduction, this training pathway seems appropriate at a time when organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit, and are therefore realising the importance of capitalising on the skills they already have.

☝️ The training pathway echoes companies' legal obligations under article L 6321-1 of the French Labour Code, which stipulates that " the employer shall ensure that employees are adapted to their jobs. He shall ensure that they remain capable of holding a job, particularly in the light of changes in jobs, technologies and organisations. ".

Example of a training programme

For a better understanding of the subject, here is an example of what a "Project management skills development" training course might look like.

How do you build an effective training programme? The 6 steps to follow

Step 1: Identify the objectives to be achieved

An engaging training programme must truly reflect the skills development needs of both the company and the employee.

You therefore need to precisely define the professional objectives to be achieved, based in particular on :

• the conclusions of the annual and professional interviews;
• the various questionnaires completed throughout the year (yes, feedback is more relevant if it's collected on an ongoing basis!
• the results of more operational tests.

This way, you'll have a clearer idea of where you're starting from, so you can better determine the rest of the way.

Step 2: Set the training framework

Once you've defined the professional objectives you want to achieve, you need to know the context in which the training will be carried out. For example, are there any time constraints to take into account? Or other obstacles?

On a more general level, you also need to understand the company's learning culture: find out what the learners' references are in terms of the type of training, the kind of obstacles they are likely to encounter, etc.

👉 For example, in an organisation with a low level of digitisation, some employees may be frightened by the idea of taking online courses.

Step 3: Build the learning path

Here, ask yourself what the stages of the course are. In other words, it's time to structure the content in a progressive and logical way.

Then organise your learning modules so that they flow naturally, evolving from basic concepts to more complex notions.

💡 A few tips in passing:

• Vary the formats to maintain interest. For example, alternate between lectures, practical exercises, case studies, group discussions, etc.
• Use multimedia (videos, computer graphics, quizzes) to diversify learning methods and address different cognitive styles.
• Prepare additional resources, such as guides or articles, to go into greater depth on the subjects covered.

Step 4: Choose the right assessment methods

Of course, training necessarily involves an assessment of what has been learned.

Admittedly, this isn't a competition or a classroom. However, it's impossible to avoid this formality, because otherwise, how can the learners and the trainer be sure that the new concepts have been fully assimilated? And how can learning be adjusted as necessary?

When it comes to assessment methods, there are the more traditional ones, such as the good old MCQ or online quizzes. You can also be more innovative and 'hands-on', by organising role-playing games, or asking for portfolios and other projects to be completed.

☝️ In all cases, adapt to the professions and work to get your learners involved!

Step 5: Ensure learner commitment

Once you've built your training programme, there's no question of leaving your learners to their own devices. Instead, make sure they attend regularly and maintain their interest in the course, to avoid them dropping out.

We recommend that you put in place systems to regularly gather feedback from them. Also encourage them to talk to each other. This form of mutual support fosters a sense of belonging to a group, which is highly beneficial for motivation.

☝️ Rely also on the results of the assessments mentioned in the previous step. If they are not very good, they can certainly reveal learning difficulties, but they can also indicate a lack of interest in the course.

Step 6: Monitor the performance of your training programme

Here, we're not talking about the performance of the learners, but that of your training (even if the two are highly correlated).

The objective? To make your process part of a continuous improvement process: if you know what's going wrong, you'll simply do better next time.

So it's important to ask the opinion of the people who are most affected: the employees (there's that famous feedback thing again). However, we recommend that you cross-check their feedback with the real improvements (or not) observed on the ground. After all, sometimes an employee doesn't see themselves developing... even though their skills have clearly improved!

What about individualisation of the training path?

Today, there is a real need to individualise the training programme, i.e. to adapt the content, pace and teaching methods to the real needs of each learner.

With this approach, employees are not obliged to go through all the modules if certain skills have already been acquired. In this way, the feeling of boredom that is a major factor in dropping out is avoided.

But adapting content to this extent requires a great deal of attention to detail. Fortunately, technology and the right software make this job easier.

What software can you use to create your training programmes?

To successfully complete all the stages described above, and also to individualise training courses as much as possible, we recommend that you turn to an LMS (Learning Management System).

What does it mean ?

This is a platform developed to easily administer and distribute training content to learners. For a long time the preserve of educational institutions, it is now winning the hearts and minds of companies looking to develop their teams' skills effectively and in line with their own challenges.

It has to be said that LMSs offer many advantages 🤩 :

• real performance gains in the implementation of training initiatives ;
• standardisation of knowledge across the organisation ;
• customisation of training according to the needs of the employer, but also the actual situation of the employee ;
• real-time monitoring of learners' progress ;
• integration of communication functionalities (forums, messaging, etc.) to encourage collaboration;
• accessibility of modules at any time and in any place;
• technologies to make learning more fun, and therefore more effective (gamification, for example).

🛠️ Examples of LMS :

• 360Learning is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses and is distinguished by its collaborative learning and learner-centred approach. Developed to increase the effectiveness of your training courses, it enables users to create and share dynamic learning content very easily (it only takes 17 minutes to create a module!), tailored to the needs of their teams. As a result, courses designed on 360Learning achieve completion rates of 91% on average, a sign of real employee commitment.
  
  
• Didask stands out for its combination of cognitive science and artificial intelligence. With its authoring tool featuring pedagogical AI, you can rapidly develop high-performance content that will have a real impact on employees' day-to-day tasks. Didask also incorporates adaptive learning, which involves building ultra-personalised training paths that adjust in real time to the needs and progress of the individual. And thanks to the Smart Analytics function, you can keep an eye on the performance of your training courses and learners.

See all software Learning Management System (LMS)

Professional training courses: what should you remember?

Just like your learners, we hope you've learned a thing or two about the subject of training paths today 😉

By now you know all the little secrets to developing it effectively, including the most important of them all: using an LMS. Not only does this software help training managers to put together learning paths quickly, but learning paths that are rudely effective to boot!

Thanks to new technologies, courses become more immersive, interactive, personalised... in short, more fun. Enough to make your employees want to be top of the class. 🤓