In most corporate environments, you’re likely to find a department dedicated to employee performance and continued learning. It can take many shapes and forms, but corporate training has become an intricate part of the organizational landscape and for good reason. Training isn’t simply the introduction an employee has in their first days of employment; it is a resource that helps to enhance personal strengths and develop areas of opportunity in order to better individuals professionally.

Corporate training is often met with unwarranted skepticism. While many employees seek to better themselves throughout their careers, there are the few who aim to merely survive. Going to work shouldn’t be just about survival! So why is training so important? Chances are you have hit stumbling blocks in your career that you can link to a gap in knowledge, a troubled relationship with a co-worker, or a feeling that you have “nowhere to go” to develop a skillset. Effective corporate training provides the tools to navigate these challenges while also empowering individuals to take a proactive stance in charting their own professional course.

A trainer’s process begins with the knowledge that training is the solution. Starting with understanding the purpose, trainers move through a cycle: Purpose & Assessment, Planning & Preparation, Presentation & Facilitation, and finally, Evaluation & Performance. Each of these steps yields valuable information to a trainer, both in what is seen and what is unseen. You’ll find that trainers have a tendency to be natural observers. They aim to peel back layers in an organization to uncover the true mechanisms at work and discover cultural norms that influence development processes. It’s sometimes hard to see the separate steps of building the training process or discern how much time goes into the development of a training program.

The Association for Talent Development (ATD), the leading organization within the corporate training environment, estimates that it takes seventy-one hours of development for one hour of facilitation. With this kind of commitment, it is important for any organization to prioritize the main training requirements. Early in the training cycle of Purpose and Assessment it is crucial to determine if, in fact, the opportunity to be addressed is even an issue that has a training solution.

The largest objective of corporate training is to connect both the goals of the individual and the goals of the organization into a meaningful, mutually beneficial pathway. Corporate training increases employee satisfaction and productivity, and in turn, creates an environment with unlimited resources for success.

^{By Jordan Harvey and Doug Brock}