What Is Specialized Employee Training?

Over the past year, the corporate world has experienced a whirlwind of change, and businesses all over are feeling the consequences. Businesses today need to compete and thrive in an ever more globalized world. On top of that, external factors like health crises, social unrest, and environmental emergencies have led many to rethink how they work and operate.

So how can you get ahead of these changes and set yourself up to help make sure your organization has the competitive edge it needs to thrive and drive business success?

We created an eBook, Support the Workforce of Tomorrow with Specialized Employee Training, to explore this topic. We’ll touch on some key pieces in this blog. For the full story, download the resource here.

Specialized Employee Training: What It Is and How to Build It

Employee training often has to run the gamut. It could include everything from broad programs targeted toward new hires, to compliance courses required by the entire organization, and targeted professional development opportunities centered around specific knowledge and skills.

What is specialized employee training, and where does it fit into that picture?

Generally, specialized employee training refers to learning and development programs that are geared toward developing competencies, considering both the emerging skills landscape and evolving business needs. Think focused professional development programs that have big impacts like accelerating onboarding from 12 months to eight weeks or scaling to support 15% annual growth. It is:

• Grounded in real business needs
• Continuous, being updated and iterated to respond to evolving changes
• Measurable with outcomes that can be directly linked to business performance
• Personalized and holistic, covering a range of skills and competencies

Specialized employee training and development often uses data to map competencies to specific job roles that, in turn, respond directly to the long-term strategy of the organization.

How Can Organizations Implement Specialized Employee Training Programs?

While specialized employee training can help align corporate training to corporate needs, you might be wondering where to start. Here are some things your business can consider in order to develop a specialized employee training plan and implement a successful program.

1. Understand the Business Needs

Your first step is to define a business strategy and identify immediate, short-term, and long-term needs. What challenges and opportunities lie ahead of you? How can the right employee development programs help you address them?

Download our guide to learn more about building an online learning strategy for your organization.

2. Translate Needs to Key Competencies

Next, you want to translate business needs into core skills and competencies across the organization. Identify job roles that may be out of date or any new ones that need to be introduced. Be sure to also define key metrics per competency.

3. Establish a Baseline

Perform assessments prior to training to determine the skill levels from which you’re starting. Then review the training approaches that are most suitable for addressing individual competency while tracking employee performance.

4. Put Strategies into Play

Address individual skill gaps to help employees learn with adaptive personalized learning and additional support.

5. Assess the Impact of the Program

Administer competency-based assessments related to specific business needs throughout the training programs. Once they wrap up, perform skills assessments and job performance reviews three and six months after.

Download the eBook: Support the Workforce of Tomorrow with Specialized Employee Training

If you want to learn even more about how the implementation of a specialized employee training program can help transform your business and give it a competitive edge, download the full eBook.

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Written by

Haley Wilson

Haley Wilson is a Content Marketing Manager at D2L, specializing in the corporate learning space. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Guelph as well as a Master of Arts focused in history from Wilfrid Laurier University.