What is the purpose of training your employees? Some organizations train their employees to encourage them to perform better. Other companies may train employees to maintain their reputation of professional staff development. In the US, training expenditures in 2017 reached $75 billion. Is it worth spending such hefty amounts of money on corporate training programs? 

Yes, it is! However, your organization can achieve a high ROI only when the training goals are aligned with the strategic business objectives. It means educating your staff about the importance of acquiring new skills and knowledge that will help them to meet the business's strategic vision. 

Definition Of Business Objectives

Every business operates differently and has its own set of strategic goals, vision, and motives. In general, the strategic business objectives are grouped into the following categories: generating revenue, building reputation, achieving higher efficiency, and expanding quickly. 
 

• Making Financial Gains: Increasing annual revenues and profits is the first goal of any business. To achieve this, reducing expenditures and increasing sales is the only way. Enroll your staff in corporate training courses and build a motivated workforce that performs better to achieve the business goals. 
• Building Business Reputation: A positive image is all you need to maintain a loyal list of customers. Building a brand reputation is only possible when there are knowledgeable sales executives, dedicated support staff, and high-quality products and services providing a rich user experience. 
• Improving Production Efficiency: Increasing the speed of producing high-quality products/ services will help you reach out to more customers leading to more sales. Enroll your workforce in online corporate training programs to build an efficient team skilled in their roles and can work fast without risking quality. 
• Staying Ahead Of Market Competition: Businesses need to continuously learn and innovate to stay ahead of the competition in the modern world. It involves adopting new technologies and agile practices and adapting to the changing market demands. However, this is only possible when you have a dedicated and learning-focused team. 

Significance Of Aligning Corporate Training Programs With Business Objectives 

Achieving strategic business goals such as increased sales, good brand reputation, and improved production speed requires a motivated, highly knowledgeable, and skilled workforce. Thus, aligning training programs with the business objectives becomes crucial for business success. 

Customizing corporate training courses according to the business goals and strategies enables your employees to understand their roles better and make personal contributions to achieving the long-term objectives. Investing in a practical and relevant training program is a wise choice for assisting your employees in achieving their performance objectives. 

The challenge is, how to do this? How do you establish a connection between training goals and strategic business objectives? 

6 Ways For Aligning Corporate Training Programs With Business Objectives 

Aligning training programs with business objectives requires following the six steps listed below: 
 

• Determine Your Business Objectives: Sometimes where you are leading your business may not be an ideal direction for growth. You can begin by re-thinking the strategic business objectives that you wanted to achieve. These may be difficult goals such as increasing revenue/sales and production efficiency or easy goals such as building organizational culture and enriching customer experience. But, make sure all your business objectives are measurable. 
• Clearly Defining Performance Results: Performance results will reflect the success of an achieved business goal. For example, higher sales translate to better revenues & fewer customer complaints mean your user experience is improving. Corporate training courses aligned with your business goals can help you achieve growth and success. 
• Identifying Core Competencies, Roles & Tasks: To measure performance, you need to identify the tasks, roles, and competency areas such as specific knowledge or skills your employees need to lead your business in the right direction. For example, the sales team should have experience with prospecting & cold calling & the Support team should have excellent communication and a working knowledge of online platforms to assist customer queries efficiently. 
• Assess The Gaps & Set Targeted Learning Goals: Once you have measured your business objectives and performance results and identified roles and responsibilities, you need to identify the skill gaps by assessing their current knowledge and abilities. If you find any such knowledge gaps, close them immediately by setting target learning goals. For instance, if your sales team requires training in effective communication, enrolling them in customizable online corporate training courses may be helpful. 
• Communicate Relevant Goals To Your Staff: It is necessary to communicate the significance of learning goals to your employees for achieving those broader business objectives. Help them understand how learning objectives can make a meaningful contribution to your business strategy. 
• Develop A Training Program For Achieving Learning Objectives: When you have identified the direction you want to take your business in, the next step is to enroll your employees in a customized training program that aligns with your broader business goals and strategies. A training program should aim at closing competency gaps to enable employees to perform at their best and contribute to achieving the business objectives. 

Avoid The Costs Of Misalignment With Learnow

Around 67% of businesses reported they lack a well-rounded business strategy. 12% of employees have stated that training programs could make a difference in their careers. 

Corporate training involves spending a hefty amount of money. Hence, this misalignment can incur massive losses for your enterprise. 

Gear up and break the chain by identifying your business objectives and aligning them with your training goals. Enroll your employees in online personalized corporate training programs at LearNow to make a real business impact!