Change Management 101 (Part 1): Why You Need a Structured Skills Training Plan

What is it for?

Changing behaviours is often easier said than done. Leaders know that change of any kind – from an increase in a manager’s effectiveness to the implementation of a new technology – only happens as a result of meaningful and sustained change in individual and group behaviour. But how do you foster change in your people’s behaviour? Skill and competency building is one tried-and-true approach. And that’s where a practical, structured skills training plan comes in.

What does it do?

A skills training plan’s primary objective is to help employees acquire the skills and knowledge to be successful. The plan:

• Ensures employees are prepared to perform their jobs at go live.
• Mandates ongoing activities that reinforce key behaviours and perfect the skills and knowledge introduced during training.
• Embeds training into ongoing onboarding activities, and also establishes the people and processes to capture and share best practices.

How does it work?

1) Start with the tools at hand:
Tools within a practical skills training plan use approaches both low and high tech in nature.

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2) Develop custom tools to deliver results:

The goal of customized training is to help employees master new information and skills in order to perform their roles effectively. Unskilled employees pose the greatest risk to the organization in terms of business interruption. Employees unable to perform routine tasks – for example, completing customer sales or shipping products – can bring an organization crashing to its knees. Ultimately, you want to help employees become owners and adopters of the change, so you need to ensure they have the skills and knowledge to do their jobs. To ensure your change is successful, consider the following when customizing your skills training:

• Zero in on the critical skills front-line employees need.
• Determine the most effective and efficient training method and identify how much time employees need for training, including the best time to deliver training, for optimal effectiveness.
• Identify and institute a method of reinforcing learning (i.e., safety recertification every year or two).

Whether you’re using readymade or custom tools to train your employees. A well thought out, practical skills training plan will ensure that employees at all levels receive the right training, through the right method, and delivered at the right time.

Don’t let your change project get derailed by insufficient training. We help bridge knowledge gaps by designing a training strategy, a training plan and a curriculum that creates new areas of competence in your employees. We help mitigate risk and ensure that leaders, front-line employees and the entire organization adopt, support and assimilate organizational change that endures.

Learn more in our white paper: Managing Change: Three truths every executive needs to know to deliver superior ERP and technology implementation results.

Implementing change like a top performing company is easier than you think.

See how a travel industry leader used a customized change management plan on a technology project to transform customer service. Download the Business Case: A Customized Change Management Plan Delivers Results Beyond Expectation.