Key Components of a Successful Corporate Training Strategy

A corporate training strategy is a set of plans and approaches developed by a company to facilitate its employees’ learning, development, and improvement. For the best employee training, design it to engage employees and support their growth of skills that align with the business’s needs.

On this page:

• Why does a business need a corporate training strategy?
• What is a corporate training strategy?
• How to create an effective corporate training strategy
• Best practices for developing and implementing a corporate training strategy
• Summary

Why does a business need a corporate training strategy?

Every employee training should have a clear learning strategy to assess impact and effectiveness. However, suppose every class or learning resource promotes contradictory processes or differing corporate values. As a result, you have a workforce stuck in an unproductive cycle of unlearning and relearning instead of enabling a unified workforce with complementary values and skills. To better support skill growth across the workforce, have a learning strategy within each class, resource, curriculum, and program, plus a corporate learning strategy that embodies and enables the overall corporate learning culture and environment.

What is a corporate training strategy?

Separate learning engagements and resources should be connected to collectively foster a workforce with the needed skill sets and knowledge. Developing a corporate training strategy is the work to ensure that the separate classes, sessions, and programs offered to employees all fit into an overarching plan with a shared foundation of goals that support the business’s mission.

The best corporate training strategies are more than a list of classes or programs. A corporate learning strategy should enable and create an effective learning environment that allows employees to reach their maximum potential, developing curriculum and educational materials to match the desired outcome, and providing rewards or recognition for those who demonstrate excellence in their training.

In addition to the content of a learning experience, corporate training strategies involve:

• Setting goals and objectives to measure the effectiveness of the learning offering.
• Evaluating individual performance related to the new skill.
• Providing feedback and guidance to continue developing the needed skill and knowledge.

Do more than search “corporate strategy training” or “good corporate strategy training” to find quality corporate training for your team or workforce. Instead, be strategic and deliberate in creating a supportive corporate learning environment that will enable the application of skills from across learning experiences. Consider what each class or program brings to the organization’s collective skill pool. Then ensure that the training strategy aligns with the business goals. By implementing a thoughtful and comprehensive corporate training strategy, businesses can improve employee productivity and efficiency while boosting morale, employee engagement, and talent retention rates.

How to create an effective corporate training strategy

Learning leaders and professionals always want to deliver the best corporate training, and all training should focus on helping employees reach professional goals. Cataloging available training and corporate learning is not a strategy, nor is just using the phrase “corporate strategy training for professionals” a way to ensure measurable outcomes.

Use a step-by-step process to create an effective corporate training strategy for your department and organization. Developing a corporate learning training strategy includes:

1. Establish goals and objectives that align skills to business needs.
2. Create a learning environment that enables maximum engagement.
3. Provide various activities and resources to keep employees engaged and motivated.
4. Communicate clear expectations and deadlines so that learners can stay on track.
5. Provide rewards and recognition for those who demonstrate excellence in training to motivate all employees to continue striving for success.

Finally, companies should regularly evaluate their training strategy’s effectiveness by tracking performance metrics such as employee satisfaction, completion, and knowledge retention. Through consistent evaluation, companies can ensure that their training program is meeting its goals and objectives while continuing to improve employee performance.

Best practices for developing and implementing a corporate training strategy

With the right approach and commitment to success, companies can ensure their training programs successfully achieve their desired outcome. As you look for corporate training strategy examples to customize for your specific environment, use these tips, and the related considerations, to better ensure positive outcomes for both employees and the company.

Set clear training goals and objectives

• Determine learning objectives within each class, workshop, session, and program.
• Check for alignment of business goals across all learning offerings.
• Assess how the goals and objectives of learning offerings fit together and build complementary skills that align with business goals.

Assess your company’s needs to identify learning needs

• Identify the skills needed for current roles.
• Identify the skills needed for future state roles.
• Identify the skills needed for leadership.
• Identify the skills needed for new employees.
• Identify the skills needed for any reskilling or upskilling.
• Identify the skills needed for specific teams or areas (i.e., technical support, customer support, project management office).

Select effective training methods based on location, role, and skill

• Allow for teams that are distributed geographically across different times.
• Make travel time accommodations for employees that need to attend onsite training.
• Check that the employees have access to the technology needed for virtual or hybrid training.
• Confirm that employees have access to learning resources (onsite or virtual).
• Investigate what is needed to provide all employees the opportunity to practice new skills.
• Determine if a cohort or whole team approach is needed and understand the implications of that approach.

Create training schedules that limit interference with operations and allow for skill practice

• Incorporate practice, mentoring, and coaching times within schedules to allow for skill refinement.
• Reflect arrivals and departures connected to transportation if travel is required.
• Determine in advance if a team or all employees in a role need to attend training simultaneously. If so, find out if there are others to cover the work during standard working times, if there can be an approved schedule change to allow for the training time, or if there can be a temporary hold on ongoing work.
• Coordinate with leadership to ensure support for learning, including time to practice on the job.
• Coordinate with leadership so that for training attendees, work responsibilities are adjusted accordingly during the training times.

Evaluate the results of your training strategy.

• Evaluate at the class level for input into the evaluation of the training strategy.
• Use appropriate metrics for classes and the overall assessment of the training strategy, including but not limited to the following:
  • Pre/post skill and knowledge testPerformance reviews and feedbackOn-the-job metricsCustomer surveysTalent retention ratesTalent progression levelsFacilitator observations
  • Leader observations

Adjust the training strategy as needed and at regular intervals

• Use the evaluation data to inform refinements, changes, and updates to the strategy.
• Incorporate changes in the business and industry as part of training strategy updates.

Communicate the training strategy to stakeholders

• Establish a cadence for corporate training strategy review with top leadership, key stakeholders, facilitators, and learning teams.
• Provide ongoing communication to leadership, stakeholders, facilitators, and learning teams regarding strategy updates, refinements, and changes.
• Show the use of employee feedback and leadership input within the training strategy and any updates or changes.
• Make training goals available to all employees so that there is an understanding of how skills connect to business goals and that learning is valued.

By creating a comprehensive training strategy that incorporates consistent and regular evaluation to inform updates, the business can better maintain an effective learning environment for their employees and foster continuous improvement within the organization.

Summary

Use proven best practices for developing a corporate training strategy to ensure that both employees and the company benefit. As part of continuous improvement efforts, use participant and stakeholder feedback in conjunction with other data sources to refine, adjust, or change your corporate training strategy. Always consider the learning environment, including technology and on-the-job settings, as part of the training strategy as it impacts the effectiveness of the training delivered.