What Is Employee Training? [+ Best Practices & Trends]

Last Updated on December 18, 2024 by Owen McGab Enaohwo

employee-training

Start your free 14-day trial of SweetProcess

No credit card needed. Cancel anytime.

Click Here To Try it for Free.

Businesses do not go bankrupt overnight. It is often a result of employee negligence.

A skilled employee base is an organization’s biggest asset. Cultivating a regular employee training culture drives business growth and sustainability. But how can organizations attain such heights? Implementing the right employee training software and practices makes the difference.

SweetProcess is an employee training software with easy-to-use features for remote and interactive training. Sign up for a 14-day free trial without a credit card.

What You’ll Learn In This Guide:

What Is Employee Training?

Why Employee Training Matters: 7 Benefits for Employers and Employees

11 Types of Employee Training Programs You Can Implement in Your Company

How to Train Your New Employees Effectively Using SweetProcess

5 Impressive Employee Training Examples You Can Copy

8 Tips and Best Practices for Effective Employee Training

7 Employee Training Trends for 2025 and Beyond

Train Your New Employees Effectively Using SweetProcess

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Employee Training

employee-training

What Is Employee Training?

Organizations invest resources in hiring the best candidates from a pool of applicants who respond to their job vacancy posts. It is detrimental to the company for new employees to commence work without proper training. Proactive businesses leverage digital tools to streamline the training process. But what happens next after the initial training of new employees?

There is so much focus on training new employees that established ones are not given the same attention.

This is an operational blunder with dire consequences. Regular employee training is necessary to compete favorably in the ever-changing modern business environment. 

Employee training is a deliberate effort to empower employees with the skills, knowledge, and resources to perform their duties effectively. It entails periodic evaluation of employee performance against industry standards and bringing them up to speed in areas where they underperform. 

When employees are well-trained, it reflects in their jobs. In a SurveyMonkey research, 59% of employees affirm that good training improves their performance. The same cannot be said of undertrained employees, who may be out of touch with current standard practices.

In an instance where employee training was conducted on data management a year ago, introducing new data management regulations made the knowledge gained obsolete. It is in the organization’s best interest to retrain them on the subject lest they be prone to data-related offenses. 

Maintaining excellence in the workplace is not a default setting but a collective organizational effort. 

Businesses must prioritize employee training to succeed because it directly impacts performance and productivity. This begins with using a simple but effective tool like SweetProcess to facilitate learning.

Why Employee Training Matters: 7 Benefits for Employers and Employees

employee-training

Employees sometimes find training unhelpful due to a lack of engagement and motivation. Organizations that overcome such barriers record positive results in their employees and the general work outlook. 

Improves Employee Morale and Productivity

Employees’ attitudes to work precede their performance levels. A genuine interest in work sets the tone for increased productivity. Equipping team members with the skills boosts their morale and spurs them to deliver good results. Heightened employee morale leads to the accomplishment of more work. 

Increases Employee Retention and Performance

Employees may question their job suitability when dissatisfied with their performance and seek satisfaction elsewhere. Such doubts often stem from a lack of resources to perform their duties. A LinkedIn study shows that 94% of employees would remain in organizations that invest in their training. Employee training enhances performance and increases retention, as employees will be interested in remaining on the job due to satisfaction. 

Equips Employees With Up-to-Date Skills

Problem-solving is a criterion for measuring employee efficiency. The most competent employees lose value when their skills become outdated. Regular employee training helps keep them at the top of their game. A lack of training causes expertise decline and a devaluation of an organization’s currency. Adequate training enhances low-performing employees’ skills, creating a level playing field in the workplace. 

Boosts Company Profile and Reputation

Recent studies show that companies lose about 30% of their capabilities yearly due to a lack of employee training. An organization’s employee pedigree impacts its profile and reputation. Companies with highly skilled employees command the biggest clients and deals due to heightened confidence in their ability to deliver good results. Organizations seeking such a reputation can work their way up by training their employees and leaving no room for mediocrity.

Helps to Attract Top Talent

High-performing employees are drawn to businesses that nurture their skills for higher performance. They may be compelled to look elsewhere after sensing an organization’s reluctance to facilitate their professional development. Organizations with a robust training system as an incentive stand a better chance of attracting the best talents in the business.

Builds an Internal Talent Marketplace

Organizations can increase employee retention rates by building a strong internal talent base that allows employees to grow and transition into other roles. This can be achieved by providing extensive training on a vast area of expertise and encouraging employees to try out befitting roles. The availability of skilled hands saves companies the time and financial resources needed to fill emerging positions with external talents.

Cultivates a Positive Organizational Culture

The quality of an organization’s employees reflects its values, culture, and general work ethic. It is natural for employees to excel in areas they are regularly trained in. For instance, a company that emphasizes mutual respect in its training will ultimately have a team that respects one another. Recurring elements in employee training make up the organizational culture, yielding positive outcomes when done in good faith. 

There may be a disparity in organizational culture between new and established employees.

You can try out SweetProcess for 14 days to build your company’s knowledge base and educate employees about company culture, regardless of their positions.

11 Types of Employee Training Programs You Can Implement in Your Company

employee-training

Training mismatch contributes to employee training failure. Rather than conducting training as a formality, organizations can meet employees’ skill needs by identifying and implementing the most suitable training at the right time. 

Onboarding Training

Onboarding training is arguably the most common employee training. As new team members join an organization, they naturally need to get acquainted with its culture, operations, and their responsibilities. This is usually the first training employees have in an organization, setting the tone for their performance.

Technical or Skill-Based Training

Technical or skill-based training addresses the specific skills employees need to perform their duties. Skill level determines the quality of employees’ performance or output. Organizations have a role to play in determining their workers’ abilities. Providing skill-based training sharpens current skills and promotes expertise. Front desk personnel and an accountant may undergo the same training in some areas, but their technical training must differ due to their unique responsibilities. 

Soft Skills Training

Employees with good technical skills may excel in practical tasks but need more soft skills to collaborate with others. For instance, lacking the skills to communicate effectively with team members could jeopardize operations. Soft skills training helps teammates maximize their technical skills and contribute to a healthy work culture. 

Compliance Training

Compliance training acquaints employees with the legal and regulatory job requirements. Compliance risks may differ according to roles, but the smallest risks have a ripple effect across the entire organization. All team members should be trained on compliance requirements to prevent any loose ends.

Leadership and Management Training

An organization’s leadership and management culture dictates its work ethic and culture. A standard leadership and management training framework ensures senior staff members have the same work ethic. This creates uniformity in the company’s operations regardless of the different departments or teams. 

Cross-Functional Training

Specialization promotes job expertise. However, the dynamics of the modern workforce call for versatility and flexibility. Cross-functional training is training employees in roles similar to their specialization. This promotes collaboration across departments and empowers workers to assume new emergency positions. 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Training

Workplace diversity and inclusivity have never been more pronounced. They help organizations build a favorable image that attracts more business opportunities. Equity thrives better with an inclusive and diverse workforce. It eradicates racial, cultural, and religious biases, treating all employees fairly regardless of their origin and status. 

Product Training

Product training makes employees experts in specific products by enriching their knowledge about the products’ features, use cases, benefits, and conditions. Employees can then effectively promote such products to customers, winning their trust and facilitating favorable buying decisions. 

Safety Training

Employee safety should be at the top of an organization’s priorities. This is best implemented as an ongoing practice to acquaint workers with associated risks and their prevention strategies. A cohesive safety training educates employees about all risk components and effective ways to prevent them before they escalate.

Upskilling

Upskilling is specialized training that equips employees with new and more efficient skills to perform their jobs better. It examines employees’ current duties and seeks training opportunities to enhance their performance, saving time and resources. 

Reskilling

Reskilling is the process of empowering employees with new skills for different roles within an organization. Unlike upskilling, which focuses on enhancing performance in current roles, reskilling empowers team members with new skills to assume new roles within the company. Reskilling helps organizations look inward for talent and fill vacancies at their convenience without looking for external candidates. 

The efficiency of these employee training programs lies in high engagement. 

Streamlining training procedures with SweetProcess removes redundancies and allows team members to focus on productive activities.

Sign up for a 14-day free trial to see it in action.

Click Here To Try it for Free.

How to Train Your New Employees Effectively Using SweetProcess

employee-training

The influx of employee training documentation software indicates businesses need to train their workers. However, only a few deliver on their promises to streamline training for best results, and SweetProcess is at the top of the list. 

Designed for organizations of all sizes, SweetProcess allows businesses to train their employees with standard operating procedures (SOPs), policies, and processes. Its cloud storage provides enough room to document information for remote access. 

SOP Creation and Management in SweetProcess

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are one of SweetProcess’s unique selling propositions. The system is designed to build a comprehensive workflow with step-by-step instructions on actions. SweetProcess SOPs include business procedures and processes for daily tasks within an organization, enabling consistency across boards. 

Florida-based motion design company AEJuice is one of the many organizations that have streamlined new employee training with SweetProcess. Its chief executive officer (CEO), Jacob Syrytsia, describes the company’s initial training process as “pretty painful” because he had to explain things to new hires over and over again. Even after documenting the organization’s procedures and processes, his employees still had questions. But all of that changed when he implemented SweetProcess. Employees could learn all they needed to know by watching the documentation in SweetProcess. 

“With SweetProcess, I’m able to take a vacation. I don’t have to be there all the time,” Jacob says. He trusts his employees to deliver great results in his absence because of SweetProcess—something he could not do before. 

How to Create a Procedure Manually in SweetProcess

Click on “Procedures” and “Create Procedure.” 

employee-training
employee-training

Enter the procedure title and click on “Continue.”

employee-training

Click on the pencil icon beside the title.

employee-training

Enter the procedure details and click on “Finished Editing.”

employee-training

How to Create a Procedure in SweetProcess Automatically With SweetAI 

Click on “Procedures” and “Create Procedure.” 

employee-training
employee-training

Enter the procedure title and click on “Write with SweetAI.”

employee-training

Click on the pencil icon to edit the content.

employee-training

Click on “Approve” to publish the document.

employee-training

How to Document a Process in SweetProcess

Click on “Processes” and “Create Process.”

employee-training
employee-training

Enter the process title and click on “Continue.”

employee-training

Click on “Add Step.”

employee-training

Click on “Procedure.”

employee-training

Choose the procedure from the menu.

employee-training

Click on “Add Step” and “Procedure” to add a step in the process.

employee-training
employee-training

Click on “Approve” to publish your process. 

employee-training

Policy Writing and Management in SweetProcess

Policies are the guiding principles of business. The do’s and don’ts keep employees in line with regulatory standards. SweetProcess’ policy management feature enables users to document, update, and share policy manuals with team members easily. As an alternative to manually creating policies, they can be created automatically with AI

How to Create and Manage Policies in SweetProcess

Click on “More” and “Policies.”

employee-training

Click on “Create Policy.” 

employee-training

Enter the policy title.

employee-training

There is an option to import policy documents into SweetProcess. 

Click on “More” and “Policies” from the drop-down menu.

employee-training

Click on the button next to “Create Policy.”

employee-training

Click on “Upload Document.” 

employee-training

Select the file on your computer. 

Click “Add to teams” to share the policy with team members.

employee-training
employee-training

Click on “View Policy” to view the file when it uploads. 

employee-training

Click on “Edit” to modify the document if you want.

employee-training

Click on “Approve” to publish the document or “Request Approval” to get approval from a team member. 

Knowledge Base Creation and Management in SweetProcess

SweetProcess offers a knowledge base feature for businesses to create and store intellectual property. The documents are secure, as only authorized users can access them. The knowledge base facilitates employee training by providing team members with information at any time. In addition to creating internal knowledge bases for staff, organizations can also create external knowledge bases for external parties such as clients and the public. 

Quality assurance and sensory coordinator at Stone & Wood, Tom Iacono, was amazed at how creating a knowledge base in SweetProcess transformed their operations. They struggled to follow due process and get standard regulatory certifications like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which was challenging because they did not have documented procedures and processes. However, business operations improved when they started documenting “need-to-know” in SweetProcess. 

“We started using SweetProcess for what we call need-to-know. Things that we want to ensure people are across, we put those communications into SweetProcess.” In no time, there was consistency across the entire organization as employees had access to the same business procedures and processes in SweetProcess.

How to Create an Internal Knowledge Base in SweetProcess

Click on “More” and “Knowledge Bases.”

employee-training
employee-training

Click on “Create Knowledge Base.”

employee-training

Enter the knowledge base title and click on “Continue.”

employee-training

Click on the pencil icon beside the title.

employee-training

Click on the row below “Control Access” and select “Private Knowledge Base, only logged-in team members may view (if they have the necessary permissions).”

Enter the URL of the page that users will be redirected to when they click on the knowledge base title. 

employee-training

How to Create an External Knowledge Base in SweetProcess

Click on “More” and “Knowledge Bases.”

employee-training
employee-training

Click on “Create Knowledge Base.”

employee-training

Enter the knowledge base title and click on “Continue.”

employee-training

Click on the pencil icon beside the title.

employee-training

Click on the space bar below “Control Access” and select “Public Knowledge Base. Any member of the public can view without logging in.” 

Enter the URL of the page that users will be redirected to when they click on the knowledge base title. 

employee-training

You may redirect users to a custom domain. 

employee-training

Task Management in SweetProcess

SweetProcess facilitates interactive employee training by allowing organizations to assign tasks and quizzes to training participants. This tool is useful for delegating work to team members and tracking progress.

How to Manage Tasks in SweetProcess

Navigate to the document and click “Actions.”

employee-training

Select an action from the drop-down menu. 

employee-training

Click on “Assign” to assign tasks.

employee-training

To assign the task to one person, click “Teammates assigned their task.”

employee-training

Select the teammate.

employee-training

Enter the task name, due date, time, and frequency, and click “Assign Task.”

employee-training

Team Collaboration in SweetProcess

Collaboration boosts organizational productivity by combining team members’ project expertise. SweetProcess makes it easy for employees to collaborate on projects with bespoke features to keep everyone updated on project progress. 

How to Assign Collaborative Tasks in SweetProcess

Navigate to the document and click on “Actions.”

employee-training

Select “Assign as Task” from the drop-down menu. 

employee-training

Select “Teammates assigned together” to assign it to multiple people.

employee-training

Jacob and Tom transformed their business operations by deciding to implement SweetProcess. The decision to train your employees with effective software is yours to make. 

employee-training

Sign up for a 14-day free trial of SweetProcess without a credit card.

All its features are available to you at no cost during that period. You can walk away without committing at the end of your trial if you want.

Click Here To Try it for Free.

5 Impressive Employee Training Examples You Can Copy

employee-training

Standard employee training models provide continuous training success. Taking cues from those who have worked for others saves organizations the trouble of creating training frameworks from scratch. The following employee training examples are proven and tested. 

Cooley Academy Mentoring Program

The Cooley Academy Mentoring Program (CAMP) is a mentorship initiative by California-based law firm Cooley. Having suffered a huge setback in its operations, the organization hired recent graduates and paired them with legal experts for mentorship. The new intakes had one-on-one intensive training sessions with their mentors, learning critical skills in the legal profession, and their performance increased by 95% within a short time. 

Facebook Engineering Bootcamp

The Facebook Engineering Bootcamp is a six- to eight-week program that trains new engineers on the Facebook code base. The trainees are mentored by expert engineers who teach them how to tackle regular engineering problems on the site. After the first few weeks of training, the new engineers are assigned to fix bugs on the social network, and most of them perform well.

Amazon Technical Academy

Amazon Technical Academy is an upskilling employee training program that helps non-technical Amazon employees transition into technical roles. As part of their assessments, the participants are trained by senior software engineers to resolve real technical problems. The trainees continue with their current roles while participating in the nine-month program. Successful candidates transition into software engineers at the end of the training.

Google’s G2G Network

Google’s G2G Network is a peer training initiative where Google employees teach and learn from one another. Employees who are experts in their fields volunteer to share their knowledge with others by teaching courses and offering individual mentorship. Over 6,000 Google employees are members of the G2G network, many attributing their improved performance to the platform. 

GE Brilliant You

GE Brilliant You is a virtual learning platform for training GE employees. It offers a knowledge base for employees to access information to perform their duties better. The GE curriculum is designed to meet employee needs in a digital business landscape and acquaint them with various digital tools. 

A common factor among these employee training examples is remote learning. You can use SweetProcess to train your workers remotely, building a solid team without geographical restrictions.

8 Tips and Best Practices for Effective Employee Training

employee-training

The effectiveness of employee training lies in its ability to promote efficiency and increase performance. Anything less is a waste of valuable time and resources. Here are some practices to make it worthwhile.

Embrace Digital and Mobile Learning

An IBM study states that every dollar spent on digital learning for employees yields $30 in productivity because they learn faster. Flexibility is a prerequisite for effective training, especially in a digitally-focused marketplace. Creating online training materials that employees can access remotely prevents physical barriers unless the task requires physical presence. Such flexibility allows participants to self-learn wherever and whenever.

Incorporate Experiential Learning

Experiential learning helps employees acquire practical skills to perform tasks in real-life situations by showing them how to perform tasks and encouraging them to try activities during training. This resolves knowledge and skill issues that only arise in real-case scenarios. 

Create Interactive Training Content

Interactive training material increases audience participation and retention. Avoid a one-way training model, as this may bore participants. Combining various elements such as video, audio, and chart instead of using only text reduces boredom. Ask employees to engage with the training material to keep them active.

Leverage Employee Training Software

Employee training software is designed to simplify and enhance training. It gives a head start with customized features to prevent creating training content from scratch. Users can import documents, access templates, and customize design interfaces to suit their needs.

Measure Training Effectiveness with Employee Surveys and Quizzes

Repeating ineffective training is a continuous waste of resources and reduces employees’ interest in training within the organization. Gauge the impact of concluded training with surveys and quizzes. Make them anonymous so that participants can give honest feedback. 

Provide a Personalized and Flexible Learning Experience

Training participants’ knowledge and skills vary. Factoring this discrepancy in training produces a more rewarding learning experience. Assess employees’ capacities ahead of time and engage them personally to meet their needs. 

Align Training With Organizational Goals

Aligning employee training with organizational goals is good resource management practice. Training employees in areas outside of your business needs is not prudent because the knowledge and skills they acquire will not be impactful in your business. Create the training around your immediate business needs for quick returns on investment. 

Engage Subject Matter Experts

Employees must be able to apply the knowledge and skills they are taught in training to real business problems to record performance success. This is possible when professionals facilitate employee training. Engage subject matter experts with a track record in the chosen areas to headline the training. 

Maximize the opportunity by taking advantage of SweetProcess’ multimedia features to create comprehensive standard operating procedures around the experts’ knowledge for longevity.  

employee-training

Employee training methods evolve according to trends in business environments, particularly innovations in digital technology. Identifying and aligning employee training with top trends enables organizations to maximize their training endeavors. Here are seven key employee training trends for 2025 and beyond. 

Use of Advanced Technologies

In 2025, advanced technologies such as generative AI, virtual reality training, and gamification of learning will thrive in employee training. Organizations can use these technologies to streamline training by creating content instantly with generative AI, enhancing remote learning with virtual reality, and increasing employee engagement with gaming of learning. 

Peer Training

Peer training is gaining momentum in mainstream business. With Google’s G2G Network recording a high success rate, more organizations will likely leverage peer training in 2025. Encourage peer training by cultivating a healthy and inclusive work culture where employees are keen on contributing to organizational growth.

Video Training

Video training may not be new. However, new features, such as interactive learning, are being incorporated for greater value. Employees can engage with different components of a training video by clicking on the screen to navigate to choice items. 

Blended Learning

Although digital learning offers several benefits, like flexibility and convenience, traditional learning still has that in-person advantage. Some tasks are best understood when taught or practiced in person. Blended learning combines both digital tools and face-to-face interactions to offer a holistic learning experience. 

Hybrid Work

Organizations may never return to the complete in-person work practice obtainable before COVID-19 as hybrid work continues to be popular in 2025. Therefore, it is important to create flexible employee training to accommodate in-person and remote learning based on training needs and participants’ convenience. 

Microlearning

The human attention span is getting shorter as commitments and distractions increase. Break training materials into small parts as employees may easily lose interest in long-form content. Focus on a specific subject or skill and communicate it quickly for faster assimilation.

Cybersecurity Training

The rising use of technology in the workplace creates more vulnerabilities. There is an urgent need to heighten cybersecurity training because cybercriminals can hack a business network with the smallest loophole. Educating employees on healthy cybersecurity practices can prevent risks. 

Raise the bar by documenting cybersecurity practices and making them accessible in SweetProcess to employees at all levels. 

Train Your New Employees Effectively Using SweetProcess

An Association for Talent Development (ATD) report reveals that organizations with effective employee training record 218% higher income per employee compared to those who do not. This proves that employee training is an organization’s biggest investment. SweetProcess can help you train your employees to achieve such success without hassle. 

employee-training

Sign up for a 14-day free trial without a credit card and test the waters yourself. 

Click Here To Try it for Free.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Employee Training

What Is the Difference Between Employee Training and Employee Development?

Employee training is an organization’s effort to give employees the skills they need to be successful in their current roles, while employee development is a long-term commitment aimed at nurturing employees’ career advancement. Continuous employee training leads to employee development.

How Long Should Employee Training Be?

There is no standard duration for employee training. The length of training depends on the job role and tasks. Typically, employee training on specific roles or tasks lasts from a few hours to a few months, depending on the training syllables. 

Who Needs Employee Training?

All active employees, whether new or established, need training. Employees who are good at their job can also be trained to be better. 

Does Training Improve Employee Productivity?

Yes, training improves employee productivity by teaching employees skills to perform their duties better, faster, and more efficiently.

Why Is Continuous Learning Important in the Workplace?

Continuous learning helps businesses compete favorably in the market by keeping them updated with emerging practices. It also increases productivity, boosts employee performance, and increases retention.

Avoid wasting time documenting the wrong tasks.
Download our free Systemization Checklist.