Employee Training Materials: Customized Training for Every Organization

The success of any business depends on its skillful workforce. And that's only possible when companies invest in the training of employees. Neglecting this crucial aspect can cost your employee productivity and in turn company's performance. The easiest way to cater the learning part is to create employee training material. 

Gone are the days when training materials were created using Microsoft Word- boring and bland! With ever increasing competition in the business world, companies are more inclined towards creating high-quality and engaging materials for employees' learning and development that contribute to the organization’s growth. 

In a surprising report, the US training expenditure crossed $100 billion in 2021-22, depicting the need for training in business success. So, in this article, we will learn what you should include in employee training material and how to create it. Let's begin: 

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What is Training Material?

Employee training material is content created to educate, upskill, and train employees within the organization. These training materials can be handouts or digital content. Regardless of the content type, they should be engaging, easy to use, and fulfill the business's purpose and goal. 

It’s important because quality training not only helps employees increase knowledge and performance but also contributes to job retention. Employees who have moved internally due to upskilling are 75% more likely to stay at their current job, ensuring a more stable and committed workforce—something every organization strives to achieve.

Source: LinkedIn Learning

What is the Importance of Training Material?

Creating training material for your employees is important for many reasons, such as: 

1. Consistency and Clarity

Training materials provide a consistent source of information to all employees, ensuring a uniform learning experience. This consistency is vital for maintaining standards and efficiency, whereas inconsistent materials can lead to unclarity and confusion among employees. 

2. Accessibility 

Training material can provide value only if it's easily accessible to employees. That means your learning mode is easy to navigate and available in multiple formats like videos, pdf, or transcripts to refresh your team's knowledge. It also ensures that the employees have the training material instantly so that they can perform their jobs in a better way. For example, if a customer service team gets an unusual query, they can quickly refer to the material to provide a response aligned with the company's standards. 

3. Reduced Development Time

Standardized training materials save time and resources by reducing the need for repetitive training sessions. Instead of continuously covering the same topics, policies, and procedures with new hires, companies can use standardized materials. This approach is easy, less expensive, and time-saving. Furthermore, you can keep updating the material if needed to meet the company's goals. 

What to Include in Employee Training Material?

While creating training material, HR professionals should consult with relevant teams to gather their input. A thorough planning is necessary so that nothing remains untouched. 

Here’s what to include in your employee training material:

1. Learning Objectives 

Clearly define learning goals and objectives. Employees should understand what the training is about and what they should expect at the end.

2. Content Outline

Providing detailed content outline and  table of contents is important to help learners understand what's covered in the curriculum. Similarly, ensure organizing the material into sections or modules with clear headings or subheadings for easy navigation. It allows employees to get the know-how of information before starting the training. 

‍Source: Coursebox AI

3. Visual Aids

Try to make the content interesting and exciting by adding visuals and saying goodbye to monotonous content. It can be in the form of images, videos, charts, graphs, or diagrams to enhance the appeal and engagement. 

‍Source: Coursebox AI

4. Activities and Exercises 

Incorporate interactive and engaging activities that employees can apply in the “real world.” When employees practice what they have learned during training, it boosts their self-confidence and interest in learning. 

5. Assessment 

Include quizzes to check where employees stand in their learning journey. It also helps me memorize and retain the content. 

To streamline quiz creation, try Coursebox’s AI quiz generator.

It allows you to quickly create quizzes and answers from PDFs, videos, and slide decks in just 10 minutes. You can even have the AI generate quizzes on any topic, making assessments both productive and effortless.

‍Source: Coursebox AI

6. Additional Resources 

Use resources like PDFs, videos, and references that employees can access even after the training ends. These resources provide ongoing support and opportunities for further learning, helping employees deepen their knowledge about relevant topics. 

7. Glossary 

Include a glossary at the end that explains different terms used in the training. This section offers employees quick access to explanations of terms they may find unfamiliar, helping them better understand the content.

8. Clear Instructions 

Employee training material should have clear and step-by-step instructions on how to make use of training material effectively. Adopt clear and easy language for everyone to understand. 

9.  Real-life Examples

Content having examples is more likely to touch the hearts of learners and remain in their minds for longer. Therefore, try to include real-life examples, so employees can relate to and learn with no difficulty. 

10. Accessible to All 

The training material should be made in a way that's accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. Incorporate screen-reader friendly formats and provide captions or transcripts. Also use headings, subheadings, page numbers and table of contents for easy accessibility. 

6 Relevant Examples of Employee Training Material

Employee training material is provided in different forms, each with benefits and use cases. Here’s a look at six corporate training resources for the betterment of your employees. 

1. Training Videos 

Training videos are one of the most effective ways to train individuals, as they can keep people engaged more than written content. According to research, people are 95% more likely to recall or retain content delivered via video than text. These are pre-recorded and provide the ease of watching at your own pace. 

Videos can be standalone training material, or they can be embedded in a course. You can make several types of video content, such as:

• Recording of live training 
• How-to videos about a specific software 
• Webcam recording as the trainer explains the topic
• Animated video using AI

‍Source: Research.com

2. Flipbooks

Flipbooks are a great and underrated corporate training material. They are long-form e-learning materials created by converting PDFs or documents. It gives you a traditional book feel by flipping pages. 

The best part is that you can integrate Flipbooks into your learning management system (LMS) and track employees' progress. You can even identify which section they found difficult or more engaging by seeing the time spent on each section. These are used for:

• Company's policy 
• Step-by-step guides 
• Operational procedures

3.  E-learning Modules

The E-learning module is another great employee training material, which is self-paced and has detailed courses to train on specific topics. These can feature AI-generated videos or instructor-led online courses uploaded to LMS. 

Each course is structured into several components, including lectures, text, videos, quizzes, assignments, and discussion boards, creating an engaging and interactive learning experience. These are used for:

• Training new employees
• Upskilling existing employees 
• To deliver compliance training 
• Transforming existing documents or PDFs into an online course

4. Checklist

A checklist consists of a list of items to be completed in small boxes next to each item, allowing employees to mark them. It's a helpful employee training tool to keep track of the progress of a given task, making sure that nothing will be overlooked. A checklist can be used for:

• Long-term planning 
• to-do list of the immediate task

5. Role-plays 

Role-play simulation is a great employee training material that helps them practice in the real world before interacting with clients. Employees are given different scenarios to complete a task so that they can see the outcome of their decisions. This approach increases employee confidence and better equips them with the required skills. 

Role-plays are used for training:

• Customer service team
• Sales team
• Negotiation
• Sceneries where they have to deal with clients one-on-one.

6. Training Manuals

Training manuals are short-form handbooks instructing employees on a specific task. It's the easiest way to train individuals on how a tool or feature works. It includes quizzes and exercises to help them master the knowledge. Manuals are used for:

• Training employees on specific tasks or jobs.
• Offer a quick reference to help new employees.

6-Steps to Create Employee Training Material

Training content development is a big project and seems daunting as it requires a lot of planning, but with careful planning, you can create impactful training material. 

Here, we have covered seven steps to create employee training material that’s both powerful and engaging:

Step 1: Identify Training Needs and Objectives

Before taking the first step, understand your target audience, their preferences, needs, skill level, and how much knowledge they have. This employee-centric approach allows you to customize content according to their needs. According to a survey by Axonify’s State of Workplace Training, 92% of employees say that formal and well-planned training positively impacts their engagement level.

The next step is identifying objectives that align with the company's goals. Then, define what they should expect and what's the outcome of the training. Consider these guiding questions to develop useful content: 

• What are the needs of your audience?
• What are the skill gaps in your team?
• What are the expectations at the end of the training program? 

Remember, your training material should be based on SMART goals, i.e., specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-specific. By focusing on these criteria, you can create well-structured content with clear goals in mind.

Step 2: Review Existing Training Material

Next, the question is how to develop a training curriculum. For this, first look at all your organization's existing training material. It provides an opportunity to update the content, saving you time and resources. Properly review the content, what changes it needs, how much update is required, and how valuable this content was in the past. To evaluate, ask these questions; 

• Is the content obsolete? 
• What was the mode of training? (documents, PDFs, presentations, etc.)
• What was the feedback of the employees who used that training material? 
• Does it contain all the relevant information on a given topic?
• How much is the information gap?
• Are there any mistakes or changes needed?
• Is the content engaging or bland?

So, after reviewing existing material, evaluate thoroughly whether you need to create new content or what changes are required in this content to make it more engaging. Once this is settled, move on to the next step. 

Step 3: Choose a Delivery Method.

The next step is to choose a delivery method. It can be online training, in-person training, webinars, or slide decks. You can decide the delivery method of employee training material based on the company's needs and resources. If the company is small, in-person training is feasible, but if the company is large, online training is the only option for delivering it to a large audience. 

Step 4: Develop Training Outline 

Now comes the most important step–planning the training outline. This involves planning the structure, timeline, costs, and resources required. Your outline should provide a high-level overview of the training content and its delivery.

Step 5: Create Training Materials and Tools

The fifth main step is creating training material. The content should cover all the aspects of learning to meet employees’ skill gaps. You can use tools like Coursebox authoring tools-best employee training software! With SCORM authority tool, you can make use of existing material to convert into courses. It even gives you a course structure idea before generating the draft. That's not it, you can create quizzes and get instant grading to know the employees’ progress. 

Step 6: Conduct Periodic Training Audits

Developing employee training material is not a one-time project. In fact, content should be continuously evaluated to determine whether it meets all your business objectives. Testing it with a small group of learners and then taking their feedback is crucial for the success of training material. It helps you revise content so that the end product is accurate and complete. 

Once the training material is rolled out, continue to seek reviews and feedback from participants and keep changing accordingly. Observe your learners and see if they apply the knowledge in their workplace or have any issues implementing it.

The Bottom Line 

Training your employees is the need of the hour, as 68% of employees prefer to get training at their jobs. So, to fulfill their learning thirst and ensure your business's success, developing employee training material is the most important part. A well-designed training program keeps your employees satisfied and allows you to check your business goals. 

Want to create a high-quality AI-powered training program to upskill your employees? Coursebox.ai is at your service! Our all-in-one content creation tool allows you to generate editable outlines and create a course within 10 minutes. You can also make engaging quizzes and get instant grading, helping your employees test their knowledge retention. Take your steps towards valuable training with Coursebox now!  

FAQs

What resources are needed for staff training?

Various types of training resources are needed for a better learning experience. Some of the examples are as follows:

• Training Videos 
• Handouts
• Presentations
• Checklist 
• Flipbooks 
• Training Manuals
• Self-assessment forms 

How do you write training materials?

Here are some strategies for writing engaging training content for employees: 

• Understand your target audience and write for them according to their expertise.
• Write in an engaging and storytelling way.
• Incorporate interesting exercises to make complex topics understandable.
• Use visuals to make the content more appealing. 
• Add real-life examples so employees can easily relate to them. 
• Use easy-to-understand language and avoid complex acronyms wherever possible.

What are the training material deliverables?

Training deliverables are the outcomes of your training, such as courses, assessments, reports, and certificates. They are created during the project and align with the company's goals.

What does employee training mean?

Employee training is the process of providing employees with learning and development opportunities to enhance their skills.