Simple steps to get started with training your employees. For owners and managers of businesses with fewer than 100 employees—start your talent development program today.

1. EMPLOYEE TRAINING
ESSENTIALS
For Small and Micro Businesses
Tammy Bjelland
Founder & President, Learning in Bloom
www.learninginbloom.com

2. —Tony Bingham, president & CEO of the Association for Talent Development
(ATD), formerly American Society for Training & Development (ASTD)
“Talent development means building the
knowledge, skills, and abilities of others
and helping them develop and achieve
their potential so that the organizations
they work for can succeed and grow.”

3. How can small businesses, that don’t have a
Talent/Learning Development (Training)
Department, effectively and efficiently
train their employees? How can they
develop, implement, and maintain a
company-wide talent development
program?
THE ESSENTIAL QUESTION

4. 1. Communicate the importance of effective
training
2. Identify a position for which you want to
train
3. Write training objectives for a task
4. Outline your training plan for one
objectives
5. Plan next steps to implement training
OBJECTIVES

5. What is the cost of
ineffective training?

6. Lack of engagement

7. Mistakes!

8. Lost time &
productivity

9. Loss of employees

10. Data from Center for American Progress

11. WHAT POSITION(S) DO YOU
NEED TO TRAIN FOR?
Write at least one position that you need
to train for, either now or in the future

12. Now, write a list of tasks
that you want someone in
that position to do
Now, choose ONE task

13. WORK BACKWARDS
•From that ONE task, create a
list of skills or other things
that they need to know or do
to accomplish that task
•What do they need to KNOW?
•What do they need to DO?
•HOW do they need to do it?
This is your list of objectives!

14. OBJECTIVES
•Measurable
•Clear
…these objectives drive
your training!

15. CONTENT
• Use what you already have!
• Make a list of all the tasks and objectives
you need to train on
• Dedicate one week to documenting
those tasks: through lists, video, audio,
screencast, screenshots, etc. (resource
list comes a little later in the
presentation)

16. FORMAT & DELIVERY OPTIONS

17. • Employee manual
• Standard Operating
Procedures (SOP)
• Posters
• Checklists
DOCUMENTS (PAPER OR
ELECTRONIC)

18. • Presentations
• Storytelling
• Discussions
• Role-playing
• Reports
• Demonstrations
• Collaborations
• Q&A
INSTRUCTOR-LED TRAINING

19. • Text
• Graphics
• Screenshots
• Audio
• Video
• Screencasts
• Animations
• Virtual reality
COMPUTER
BASED TRAINING

20. • Teleconferencing or
videoconferencing
• Webinars
• Collaborative projects
• Group communication
• Email
• Messaging
ONLINE

21. • Cross-training
• Demonstrations
• Coaching
• Drills
HANDS-ON TRAINING

22. ASSESSMENT &
FEEDBACK
How will you (and the employee)
determine whether or not they’ve
accomplished the objective? How
will you communicate areas of
strength and opportunities for
improvement?

23. EXAMPLE ASSESSMENTS
• Customer service: Write an email
template responding to a customer
who would like a refund
• Sales: Sales call simulation
• IT: Screencast of troubleshooting
steps
• Self assessment
• Check for understanding (quiz)

24. FEEDBACK
• Document it!
•Include areas of strength and
opportunities for improvement
• Be clear and consistent
• Compare/contrast assessment with
examples of what you expect
• Create forms that you can use and
reuse

25. TOOLS TO USE

26. COLLABORATION &
SHARING
•Google Drive
•Microsoft One Drive
•Dropbox

27. PROCESS DOCUMENTATION
•SweetProcess
•Wrike
•SnagIt
•Jing
•Screenflow

28. COMMUNICATION &
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
• Wrike
• Slack

29. ASSESSMENT & FEEDBACK
• Typeform
• Jotform
• Google Forms

30. PUTTING IT ALL
TOGETHER

31. Objective 1: Categorize content of
past social media posts
1. Content: Sample social media posts
2. Format: Screenshots
3. Delivery: Computer-Based, online (using
Versal)
4. Assessment: Create a list of topic categories in
Google Sheets
5. Feedback: Add comments to Google Sheets

32. QUESTIONS?
tammy@learninginbloom.com