Creating feedback-driven employee training

What is your organization’s most valuable asset? If you answered “employees,” we couldn’t agree more.

While competition in the job market increases, employees are seeking opportunities for professional development—and organizations that invest in their continued growth. Enter employee training programs.

Employee training is any education or activity that teaches employees new skills to enhance their performance. 

But how can you be sure the training initiatives you’re implementing are effective? You can’t know without asking. Feedback can help you develop your employee training beyond standard programming—for the betterment of the company and employees.

In this article, we’ll explain how and why to gather employee training feedback. Keep reading. 

When you improve your employee training, everyone wins. However, there’s just one problem.

The standard employee training is just that—standard. It's generally not tailored to an employee’s unique needs, which is a disservice to your employees and company.

Poor employee training has vast consequences.

Training surveys can yield invaluable employee feedback you can use to improve the employee experience and business outcomes.

According to Gallup, organizations that invest in employee development report 11% greater profitability and are twice as likely to retain employees. Why? 

Let’s look at it another way. Your objective is to maximize productivity to align with your organization’s annual revenue goal.

A training survey can help you scrutinize the efficacy of your training, asking questions like:

As a result, you can create solutions—like providing compliance training—that empower employees, enhance productivity, and progress the company toward its revenue goal.

Plug in any result: An 85 Net Promoter Score®, recognition from a governing body, or earned media on a national level. You can achieve these goals (or overcome challenges!) by supercharging your employee training, enhancing the employee experience, and empowering employees to be their best selves.

Continue reading to learn how to gather employee feedback and create an action plan for success.

Have you ever tried to construct a piece of furniture without reading the instructions? Writing a survey without defining an objective is kind of like that. An objective organizes and focuses your survey. A goal also gives respondents context around why their participation is important.

Ultimately, your company goals will guide your objectives, but there are a wide range of goals, including:

Solidifying the scope of your survey is an important foundation for its success, and it will help you make sense of your feedback later. 

Set your employee training program (and later updates) up for success by establishing clear KPIs that align with your objective and company goals. 

Like defining objectives, setting KPIs that align with your goals can provide structure and focus. KPIs track the progress of your employee training updates. They also help you pinpoint areas of improvement. Here are a few examples of common KPIs for employee training programs: 

Does knowing your new hire’s preference for cats or dogs progress you toward your training objectives or company goal? Probably not. And while that's an exaggeration, it is the perfect illustration of why your survey questions are important. Your questions must serve a purpose. They must progress you towards your goal.

Asking, “Were the objectives and expectations of your role clearly communicated?” can help you assess the transparency of your company comms. Transparency and a culture of trust considerably impact employee engagement and retention. Inquiring “Did you receive guidance on where to find additional information or support?” can allow you to respond to lacking processes.

Align your survey questions with your objectives and company goals, and you won’t go wrong. Your survey questions will enable you to gather employee feedback that can directly inform decisions, strategies, and improvements.

Your fast, thoughtful action is paramount to supporting competent and satisfied employees. Quick action communicates your commitment to employee comprehension, satisfaction, and productivity.

For example, if satisfaction with a peer training activity is low, it may indicate that employees didn’t find the session to be a beneficial use of their time. Using skip logic to add an open-ended follow-up question for those who answered “dissatisfied” will help you understand what can be improved.

From there, you can implement changes, like offering on-demand e-training sessions, to the training program. Follow up with survey participants and close the feedback loop to inform them exactly what changes you implemented.

Acting upon employee feedback is not a “one-and-done” activity.

You should seek feedback on an ongoing basis as perspectives change and knowledge evolves. Prepare to update your employee training as you gather feedback, technology advances, and your business practices progress. 

And remember to track the performance of your employee training as you make updates to the programs and training materials. A keen eye and thorough understanding of historical data can help you respond to significant shifts in KPIs. 

Use SurveyMonkey to create anonymous and confidential training course surveys to learn if you’re meeting objectives. Learn how you can influence employee performance, productivity, and satisfaction—all variables in your organization’s success. 

Ready to get started? It’s easy with our expert-written survey templates that get you actionable, reliable results.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.