Steps towards an ongoing employee training and skills development plan

The cultural digital transformation we experience every day highlights the importance of continuous learning in all aspects of business and marketing. How can you leverage training and skills development planning to achieve your goals this year?

The landscape of today’s workplace isn’t what it was twenty years ago. Today’s environment is both fast-paced and competitive, which makes it all the more important that employers find a way to keep employees energized - often with an employee training and skills development plan.

This changing nature of work requires additional training strategies focused on enhancing learning agility, transferability of skills and opportunities to explore adjacent, in-demand skills.

Digital transformation is an area of skills development that demands attention. Companies need to improve the effectiveness of their online communications now that digital channels are one of the main techniques customers use for selecting and buying products and services.

If you're looking to create or improve your marketing plans, our RACE Growth System is a great place to start. From here you can identify which areas of your marketing would benefit the most from optimization, which will inform your team training needs.

How to assess future marketing training and skills development requirements

It isn’t always easy for employees and managers to identify which skills are required or the best learning strategies to attain those skills. This often leads to learning initiatives that do not match employee motivation and success needs, while also failing to achieve long-term results.

To support you in planning for employee development, we’ve created our Employee Development Learning Path for Business Members.

This Learning Path can be used for annual development or performance reviews between managers and team members, and then reviewed during the year. Individual employees can also use it independently for their development.

The benefits of employee training and development planning

Employees at every level want to see a clear development path in front of them and be supported in development through training. The more engaged and motivated an employee feels, the more useful they are to the company and the longer they’ll stay with the company.

Having a plan that clearly outlines what comes next in their career often allows employees to work through challenges rather than seeing them as blockages. This gives employees a forward-looking perspective of what’s on the horizon for both themselves and the company.

How to structure employee development reviews

Our Learning Path uses the popular GROW model which encourages employees and managers to reflect critically on development needs from personal and organizational perspectives to find the best match overall.

The result of using the template will be a well-constructed plan that is laid out and provides sufficient information to support the achievement of development goals, giving employees something to work towards and a focus for supported action by managers.

Implementation timescales

The implementation of the plan relies on a large number of factors such as the goals to be achieved and the capacity of the person to achieve them. For this reason, how long the plan takes will be unique to each individual. For example, a goal of attaining a management position may take less time for someone with previous team leader experience than a new starter.

Developing your marketing skills with Business Membership

For employees, our Learning Path module “Develop your marketing skills with Smart Insights” provides an overview of employee development generally. It then outlines how to create a plan and highlights how the Smart Insights platform can support the implementation of your plan.

In this module you can also examine benefits to the organization, and different methods and approaches you can use when planning your development journey, including the creation of actionable development plans.

Core Module

Developing your marketing skills with Smart Insights

Part of the Managing digital marketing teams Toolkit

Learn how to develop an action plan for enhancing your own marketing skills

Learn More

Developing your team members with Business Membership

For managers, the module “Developing your team members with Smart Insights” provides information additional to the individual module. It examines other facets including benefits to the organization, and different methods and approaches you can use when supporting your team members in their development journey, including the creation of actionable development plans.

There is additional information on how to conduct a plan development meeting, provide feedback and support the implementation of the plan by using the different types of Smart Insights resources.

By using the skills development template you will be able to more effectively assess employee and business goal alignment. By ensuring the employee development goals in some way aligned to the overall business goals ensures the development plan can have a wide-reaching impact.

Training and skills development planning can help to identify your employee's technical and soft skill mix. Encouraging employees to identify both technical and soft skills can pinpoint other specific skill sets that may be beneficial for the individual or organization to focus on.

Steps towards marketing success in 2023

Finally, having a training plan allows for a greater ambition and capacity match. The best way to ensure your team is achieving the results you want is to integrate your marketing activities and drive towards your goals. By creating an effective plan, and training your team to action it, you can drive marketing success in 2023. Take your first step today when you download our free RACE Growth System guide.