How to Meet a Training Challenge in the Manufacturing Industry

Training challenge is an important and difficult undertaking that most enterprises are faced with at some point in their journey. Whether it’s keeping pace with technology, adapting to new workplace trends, or ensuring employees are fully equipped to do their jobs, effective types of employee training can help drive company growth and keep workers satisfied in the job.

In a highly-technological, globalized world, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to meet employee training needs. L&D leaders must be ready to provide learners with new and innovative learning modalities, as well as support them in using these tools efficiently and effectively. In the past, this was done through a traditional face-to-face lecture, but these days, many employees are looking for more interactive ways to learn.

Having the right learning management system (LMS) that supports different learning modalities is one way to meet this challenge. Online learning platforms allow employees to access training materials on their own time, regardless of where they are in the world. Moreover, it can also facilitate the use of collaborative tools to allow learners to discuss and collaborate with their colleagues.

Another key way to address this training challenge is by making the content relatable to real-life scenarios that employees could feasibly encounter in their day-to-day. This can be achieved by creating engaging content and using gamification to make the process fun for learners, which is proven to boost engagement.

This is especially true for a manufacturing industry where workers need to be able to easily disengage from their jobs on the production floor and attend training sessions. Often, they have to sacrifice productive work time in order to do so, and this can lead to an overall loss of productivity for the company.

A big part of this challenge stems from the fact that the manufacturing industry must comply with a myriad of regulatory and compliance rules on a state and federal level. This, in turn, requires ongoing updates and training of employees on new policies, guidelines, or SOPs.

In the past, this would have required a full training department and a team of trainers to manage. However, with the advent of online training, many manufacturing companies have now opted to use internal subject matter experts and train their employees on new topics on their own. This allows for a more cost-effective approach and reduces the need for employees to miss valuable work time.

Many organizations struggle with measuring the effectiveness of their training programs and demonstrating a return on investment. This is because it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact value that a certain piece of training has for the business, and thus justify the expense.

This is especially the case when the L&D team is relying on external providers to deliver some of the training. Fortunately, this challenge can be overcome by using tools such as the LMS to record and share the performance of employees who have completed training programs. Moreover, it’s a good idea to consider leveraging alternative learning modalities such as lunch-and-learn sessions, microlearning, and self-directed e-learning with post-session development assignments to measure the performance of your program. Träningsutmaning