The Best Ways to Do On-the-Job Training

Want to know how to provide effective job training for employees? The best job training happens at work. If you're committed to employee development - and powerful reasons exist about why employee development is critical - on-the-job training may provide your best answer.

Employees appreciate the chance to develop knowledge and skills without ever leaving work. And, you can customize the on-the-job training employees receive to your workplace needs, norms, and culture. Internal job training and employee development bring a special plus. Unlike external job training, examples, terminology, and opportunities can reflect the culture, environment, and needs of your workplace.

You can offer powerful on-the-job training for employees to your significant advantage as an organization and service or product provider. Here are twelve ways to provide on-the-job training and significant employee development. Are you pursuing all of these opportunities for internal job training and employee development? If not, you should be.

1. Mentoring

A mentoring relationship is a win-win for all parties: the employee who seeks a mentor, the mentor, and organizations that employ the mentoring pair. Mentoring is also a powerful form of job training and can contribute experience, skills, and wisdom to a mentored employee to increase and expand employee development.

Mentoring, whether with the boss or another experienced employee, is key in employee development within your organization

2. Periodic In-House Training From Internal or External Resources

If you're looking for a way to develop your internal staff that involves an external consultant, or even an internal manager or HR staff person, internal job training is an effective way to offer training and build the team at the same time.

Employee development, offered in brief sessions, internally, on a regular basis, allows you to do job training with a consultant or internal provider who knows your goals, language, culture, and workplace norms. These job training sessions also build the team and help employees develop conversations about improvement, growth, and change. More

3. Implement a Book Club at Work

Looking for an easy way to share information for employee development at work? Form a book club in which a group of employees voluntarily reads the same book. Combine the book reading with a regularly scheduled discussion meeting to double the impact of the book on job training.

Ask one employee to lead the discussion about the week's assigned chapter or two. Ask a second employee to lead the discussion about the relevance of the book's teachings to your organization. You'll magnify employee development with a book club

4. Require Employees Who Attend External Training to Do Job Training

When an employee attends an external seminar, training session, or conference, establish a company norm that the employee is expected to magnify the experience for the company by training other employees. This is effective employee development because it introduces new ideas to your organization.

It is cost-effective in that the attending employee provides employee development for other employees. These presentations promote employee development, the promulgation of new ideas, and extend job training knowledge.

The requirement also develops the skills of the employee who attended the external event. He or she practices sharing ideas and presenting - both significant skills for employee development.

5. Promotion

A promotion is a powerful form of job training. A promotion forces an employee to grow - or sink. With appropriate mentoring and coaching, a promotion is a positive form of employee development. For job training, a promotion is stretching and fulfilling.

6. Transfer

A transfer is an approach to employee development that also helps employees create a career path. A transfer provides experience in other areas of an employee's current department or in a new department within the business. This job training widens the employee's horizons and enables the employee to gain wider and broader experience within the business. A transfer provides effective job training.

7. Lateral Move

In a lateral move, an employee moves to an equivalent role in an organization for job training and career development. Though the new role usually provides a similar salary range and a job title at the same level, lateral moves are critical for employee development. In a lateral move, the employee's job responsibilities change thus affording the employee job training and new opportunities. 

8. On the Job Training

On the job training is normally emphasized for job training for any new employee. Whether structured, with written processes and procedures, or informal, the power of on the job training for employee development cannot be overemphasized.

Early and timely job training ensures that the employee will perform his or her job effectively. Competence builds employee morale and motivation and ensures employee commitment and retention.

Employee onboarding or new employee orientation is also critical in this job training mix. You can also produce internal job training videos and other resources that allow employees unlimited access to job training. 

9. Coaching

Executives, managers, and others interested in career growth and employee development increasingly turn to a business coach, either internal or external, for a personally tailored development process for themselves or reporting employees.

Coaching from a boss or other interested manager is always useful job training. Coaching is also a different delivery system for training, since training, especially with long term managers and people who are further along in their careers, is not working. The coach works with the manager to tailor the job training program in skill areas that need an impact. 

10. Job Shadowing

Job shadowing allows an employee to learn about and benefit from brief stints of job training while the employee observes and participates in the work of another employee. Job shadowing, whether for a day, a month, or some other period of specified time is a little used form of employee development.

Used by colleges and universities, along with internships for student career exploration, job shadowing can provide job training as well. Job shadowing is also an excellent approach to the job training of employees who provide back up for jobs such as payroll. Job shadowing is also perfect for an employee with an interim assignment resulting from an employee termination

It’s easy to think that on-the-job training is as simple as showing a new employee how to run the cash register or use the phone system in the office, but that is clearly not the case. Once you look at on-the-job training as your own business-specific university in which you are building the future of your business on the employees you have today, it takes on a whole new meaning.