Learning on the job is the most important part of training. Why? Because it’s not training that’s just given to employees, but something that they can participate in.
As we well know, the majority of learning occurs in the 70% and learning on the job is a major part of that. However, often, training takes place away from the job floor, either in a specific training room or many miles away from the office, this can put a wall between what the employees are learning and how they are working everyday.
On the job training, more than anything else, ensures that learning is embedded in the workplace and that behaviour has been changed. Project Management Institute’s Lead Instructional Designer Karen Holloway said, “The in situ experience helps strengthen recall of information in a way that classroom learning can’t.”
This blog covers just a few of the reasons why learning on the job is so beneficial to both the employee and the employer.
1. It’s personalised
Your business is unique. This uniqueness can cover everything from the products you develop to your company values. Communicating this can be very hard when employees are taken away from the workplace and dropped into training that is removed from their environment or provided with off-the-shelf training content.
Moving training to on the job allows you to tailor every learning opportunity to the required outcome whilst also keeping it personal, manageable and scalable. You can ensure that your employees are getting the training as and when they need it with the additional touch of being unique to your company’s values and aims.
2. It’s more cost-effective
In-house, on the job training is the most cost-effective training you can provide simply because you don’t need to put as much money into it as you would training providers or content providers. Also, as it happens, when people are working you don’t need to provide cover or take them away to their day to day jobs to train them. You spend way less money.
3. It’s appropriate to your employees needs
This form of training can be implemented when the need arrives. It can be spontaneous yet effective. It can be applied to employees as and when they need to learn without a great deal of scheduling and organisation. If an employee expresses a concern or you identify a need to implement training it can be done extremely quickly and effectively.
4. Enhances behaviour change
When training occurs in the workplace it can be put into effect immediately. It focuses predominantly on employee skills and their applications. As research shows, learning on the job is the most effective way to make sure that employees change their behaviour as a result of their training. Its impact is faster and often significantly larger than other training forms.
5. It saves time
For the most part, you don’t have to remove people from their everyday environment in order to initiate training. They are learning whilst they are working so they’re technically still doing their job. Its effective and efficient, and if you take it further and teach co-workers to teach each other, it saves even more time for managers and coaches.
6. It’s more engaging
As the training directly influences the everyday, it becomes a more engaging function. It allows the effects of the training intervention to be seen almost immediately, adding value to the training. If employees see the value in the training then they are more likely to take it on board, unlike classroom training which we all know can be very dull.
7. Great for collaboration and communication
Rather than using external trainers and fitting to a specific course or content, learning on the job allows for communication between all parties. This includes, managers, coaches, directors, team leaders and everyone in between. It promotes an active conversation around training in the workplace, increasing collaboration and communication across the organisation.
To understand the benefits of becoming an effective learning organisation, download your free copy of the whitepaper, Vision for Learning Organisation.
