Reducing costs is a top priority for many small businesses, and this means they are often required to make tough budgetary decisions. Optimising your company’s resources can help you make the best decisions in the long run and achieve better control over your long-term financial plan.
Employee training is a key business aspect, which can often become expensive for small business owners. While it is crucial that your organisation provides proper training programmes, there is a possibility to make minor adjustments to limit costs.
In this article we will explore seven best practices which can help small businesses save money on employee training.
Table of Contents
Key Points
- Cross-training employees in different areas of the business promotes agility and collaboration while reducing costs associated with specialised training.
- Online platforms like Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Learning Experience Platforms (LXP) can streamline the training process, making it more time-efficient and cost-effective.
- Mentorship schemes offer low-cost, high-impact training by utilising the expertise of senior team members to guide newer employees.
- Hosting regular virtual events for skill and knowledge sharing is a cost-effective way to engage employees and provide continuous learning opportunities.
- Implementing microlearning and group training methods can result in efficient, engaging, and cost-effective employee training programs.
Cross-Train Employees
Cross-training is a common solution for businesses, who rely on developing an agile and strong workforce. This cost-effective strategy involves giving your current employees the chance to upskill themselves in areas different than their regular working practices.
For example, you can allocate new tasks and responsibilities to employees and arrange for someone who is comfortable with the job role to teach them new skills. As a result, all employees will be trained in core business areas, which will foster easier and better collaboration.
Mixing up responsibilities and tasks will keep the workday exciting by motivating employees to do their best in different situations.
Explore Online Employee Training
There are many online avenues available to small businesses, which can help reduce your annual expenses. You can explore innovative platforms, such as the imc Learning Suite, which has been designed to boost your business by encompassing both a learning management system (LMS) and a learning experience platform (LXP).
This means that you will be able to get the best of both worlds, as you combine collaborative learning and user-generated learning. This integrated system is quick and easy to use and more importantly, it will reduce the time and associated costs of training. As a result, ongoing administration can be cut in half for your HR team, as well as L&D teams.
Introduce Mentorship Schemes
A mentorship program can be extremely beneficial for new and inexperienced employees, looking for additional support. You can appoint a senior team member to guide them and act as a mentor so that they can transition into the corporate environment easily.
This is also an effective way to promote a culture that values learning and development by encouraging employees to gain skills and knowledge from those around them. Therefore, new employees will feel more comfortable taking risks and making mistakes in a safe environment.
The cost of this strategy is minimal, yet you will be able to promote personal and professional development.
Host Weekly Or Monthly Events
Hosting events regularly can be a great solution to get staff involved and engaged in learning. For example, it may be beneficial to select a topic for discussion and invite team members to share their opinions.
This will provide you with the chance to address any concerns and respond to questions in an informal manner. You can also listen to the information that is being shared and synthesise it in a follow-up email to help employees gain value.
In addition, running virtual events as opposed to physical events can reduce costs further and allow you to connect with your employees from any location.
Reuse In-House Materials
While you may have hired external professionals to deliver tutorials to employees, developing in-house materials can save your company a considerable amount of money. In addition, reusing these internal knowledge assets can promote environmentally friendly behaviours.
For instance, managers could email informative packets to teach new employees about important processes and procedures in the workplace. Most training materials, such as videos and textbooks can be reused multiple times by maintaining the same quality.
You can also upload this type of content on a special platform so that employees can view it at their convenience.
Implement Microlearning
The longer a training session lasts, the more likely it is for employees to lose interest and motivation. This is why, it may be useful to incorporate shorter learning sessions or bite-size chunks, also known as microlearning.
These sessions may last anywhere between 2 and 5 minutes in order to adapt to technological expectations and modern learners’ preferences for shorter content. Not only will this approach surpass conventional training methods, but it will also deliver the same results in a fraction of the time it takes to complete a lengthy session.
As a result, employee engagement will be improved, and productivity will increase.
Focus On Group Training
Some companies prefer to train employees on a one-to-one basis by addressing each employee individually. However, training employees in a group can offer a variety of benefits, such as improved time management and reduced costs.
Training individually can last from a few hours to an entire week, which may not be feasible for many small businesses. Dividing sessions will cut the amount of time needed to introduce everyone to their job role significantly.
Moreover, when training employees at once, you will allow them to communicate with both their trainer and their colleagues. They will then be able to hear questions from others and maximise their learning.