How to Track Employee Training Progress

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

If you could do just one thing that would help your company increase productivity by over 200%, would you do it? The answer is obvious. Of course you would! It turns out, you just need to do more of what you are already doing: employee training and development. 

Companies who offer their employees comprehensive training programs have a 218% higher income per employee compared to companies without any formalized training programs. 

Training is a vital part of any businesses’ long-term investment and growth plan. A long term study found employees actually want more training. Out of 4300 employees, 74% felt they weren’t able to achieve their full potential at their job due to a lack of development opportunities.

If you have invested your time and money into an employee training and development program, chances are you’ll want to know how your employees are progressing and if what you have implemented is working. 

Why (and How) to Track Employee Training Progress

If you want to consistently up your game you will need to track your employee training program and employee progress as it happens. 

After all, you’ll want to know whether or not the time and effort you put into implementing the program is going to good use. Employee training programs generate tonnes of value for both your business and employee development when done right. 

Tracking progress is useful for determining the program’s success. You should never put employee training on autopilot! It’s important to be proactive with your efforts so you can make improvements on the fly which help make training more engaging and likely to stick. 

You will also be able to capture some important statistics and metrics, such as how effective and engaging the programs are, how many training hours have occurred and the ROI so you can get a better picture of what future training should look like. These numbers are especially important for larger companies to help them keep track of their employees and departments.

Ways to Track Employee Training

There are typically two ways to track your employee training: by using a learning management system or by doing it the old fashioned way with a spreadsheet. Here is a brief overview of each:

Learning Management System (LMS)

Corporate Learning Management Systems, or LMS, are tools employers use to track and manage their employee training efforts in an organized way. This software was developed to support e-learning and to help manage user data. It is also able to distribute and control educational content to employees. 

The following are the pros and cons to working with an LMS as your employee training solution.

Some of the benefits of using an LMS include:

• Cost effective due to its remote nature (no travel or paid trainers, etc.).
• Consistent and equal training of employees across all regions.
• Contributes to continuous employee development because learning materials can be accessed regularly. 
• Employees will progress through structured learning which can be monitored and incentivized.
• Best used for streamlined compliance training along with providing proof of completion.

Disadvantages of using an LMS:

• With new innovations in employee education, an LMS is becoming more and more of an administrative software rather than a driving force of workplace education.
• An LMS is best used as a tool to deliver courses which have a clearly defined goal, like compliance or security courses, or training about specific products and services.
• As our workplace environment and systems become more complex, an LMS cannot keep up as a reliable delivery system for learning.
• The admin controls every aspect of the training program, including content and pacing, which means it offers limited, fixed learning which ends up being dull and repetitive.
• Fails to offer a comprehensive learning experience.
• Only able to track employee progress and performance based on simple scores which is lacking insight. 
• An LMS is not easily adaptable, and is tough to scale as your company grows.
• It also lacks any adaptability or customization for the end user, which doesn’t fit in with the expectations of younger employees such as GenZ who have come to expect this personalization.

Manual System (Excel)

The second most common way for employers to track their employee training programs is through using a spreadsheet program such as Excel. Manual tracking is an ideal solution if you only need a small amount of data, or have no other options available or applicable to the type of data you want to obtain.

Pros to Using a Manual System:

• Very easy to use and implement. 
• Little to no overhead costs.
• No need for any additional hardware, software or applications needed.

Cons to Using a Manual System:

• Can be incredibly time and labour intensive, depending on the size of your organization.
• There are limited applications for a manual system.

Incorporate Innovation Into Your Employee Training With 1Huddle

Thanks to new developments in technology, there are new and better solutions for employee training programs being developed everyday. 1Huddle is an Employee Performance Platform which can help you implement, distribute, manage and monitor your employee training efforts quickly and efficiently. 

We can provide all the benefits of an LMS, without any of its limitations due to our unique blend of gamified and engaging training programs. Our Employee Development Platform is easy to use and access anytime and anywhere, right on your smartphone app. Request a demo today.