Training management is the process in which an organization identifies training requirements, builds training programs, flags employees who need to be trained, and executes on that training. Doing this efficiently will help an organization ensure that they can effectively change business operations, and that its employees are knowledgeable, trained and fully able to do their job.

Employee profiles

An effective system will enable you to create employee profiles, which include name, role, department and more of every employee. This allows you to stay up to date on all employee information, and is necessary in keeping track of all employees and knowing who does what within the organization. In doing so, training can be more efficiently managed.

Defined training requirements

Creating training requirements and linking training events to these requirements is another benefit of a training system. It enables training to be organized by type, so whether the training is position, certification or safety-based, you will have the ability to create requirements groups and then create training events based on those groups.

Better document control

Consider automation as 20 hands doing the work of one… resulting in no lag time. Controlled documents are typically the central repository where job descriptions, processes, work instructions and more are stored. When new documents are released or existing documents are revised, employees need to be trained on them. Integrating training with the document control system helps to easily define who needs training on each document. It automatically updates training records for each employee, allows for self training or testing functions, and automatically updates each employee status upon training completion.

Automated testing

Employee training enables users to manage and track all events within an organization and set up online testing to be distributed at any time. This keeps employees ahead of the game. Scoring on exams includes pass/fail grades allowing administrators greater visibility into events that need more training. Automated employee training ensures companies are up to date and all due dates are within reach on specific job requirements. Escalation occurs if the training is approaching due date and has not yet been completed, which avoids missing opportunities.

Greater visibility into incidents

All businesses will experience safety incidents at some point. When this does happen an investigation must take place of what triggered the event. It’s beneficial for the system to link the investigation back to the training record to see if more training is required. This ensures that the employee had prior training, and gives you visibility into whether the incident was due to lack of training.

This ability can also be applied to the corrective action. If you can link training to corrective action, you can more easily see where the systemic training issues are. This will result in greater visibility into the correlation between training and incidents within your organization and ultimately mitigate or prevent future incidents through more complete and effective training.

Reporting on training

Reporting helps raise the overall level of visibility within your organization. The ability to gain higher visibility into data and to analyze trends helps to mitigate risk throughout your overall organization. Training linked with reporting helps uncover trends and helps identify areas with poor training by running reports on training effectiveness, allowing you to identify the areas that need improvement.

Linking training with reporting also allows you to roll up all incidents across your enterprise into a single, holistic report that will easily enable you to identify trends in training within your organization and take the necessary action for resolution.

Change management

The ability to link training with change management is important—employees drive the compliance system; therefore, it’s necessary to take into account the human element.  This helps to foster continuous improvement, not only in operational areas, but also in employee development.