Top 6 L&D Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)

Posted on 11/03/20 By Lorman Team

Do your employees have the skills they need to do their jobs well? Do they have the right training to help them achieve those goals?

Many organizations understand the importance of training for their employees, but they fail to provide them with the training they really need for productivity and success. 

6 Common Mistakes in Learning & Development 

Are you making these top errors with your learning and development initiatives?

Mistake #1: Choosing a content provider that doesn't offer a wide variety of courses for everyone in the company.

Choosing the right content provider is critical when you're ready to improve the quality of your training. You want a content provider who has many, if not all, of the courses you need in their library.

With an experienced content provider, you can provide high-quality training courses to your employees in every subject matter they need for success. 

Mistake #2: Failing to train for the outcomes you want to see.

As a business, you have specific outcomes that you would like to see in your employees: certain job tasks you would like them to step up and take, specific skills you would like for them to acquire, or soft skills you would like for them to develop.

If you aren't training for those outcomes, you may find yourself missing out on critical opportunities. Your learning and development plan should be reverse engineered based on the outcomes you want to see. 

Mistake #3: Buying or reimbursing individual courses for every employee. 

Individual course buying is often more expensive than simply buying a company-wide training plan. 

While you may occasionally need to branch out and purchase individual training courses for employees with highly specific needs, investing in a company-wide training plan can help you deliver higher-quality courses and keep training costs down. 

Mistake #4: Failing to analyze existing employee knowledge and future company needs.

In order to institute an effective learning and development program, you need a strong understanding of what your employees need and the specific tools that will help them excel.

Before creating a training plan, analyze your existing employee knowledge base and the progress they need to make. You not only want to train for specific outcomes, you want to know what it will take employees to get there — and that means planning ahead. 

Mistake #5: Not creating a comprehensive training program that helps strengthen both soft and hard skills for your employees.

You don't just want to keep your employees current on current industry topics or trends (although that should certainly be an important element of your training).

You also want to be sure that your employees have the soft and hard skills they need to be successful. For example, you might want to include training courses for communication, writing, productivity, Excel use, or management as part of your overall company training plan. 

Mistake #6: Failing to effectively incorporate internal input.

What training do your employees feel that they need? How can you create a training plan that will deliver it? Chances are, your employees have a solid understanding of exactly what they need and how you can help deliver it.

If you fail to consider that internal input, however, your employees might miss out on crucial training. Instead, include internal input and analysis as part of your regular training evaluations.

Find the Right Training Partner

Are you ready to start making more of your learning and development efforts? Do you need a partner with an extensive library of both soft and hard skills that will help your employees excel and achieve their goals?

Lorman's Enterprise package is the perfect solution for organizations looking to provide multiple users with unlimited access to courses, training analytics, and client support in order to drive continuous development.

Learn more about Lorman's Enterprise Level Subscriptions