In my last article, I covered tips for how to successfully onboard new IT Support professionals to your team. The act of prioritizing continuous training and development as part of an overall learning and development plan is just as important and can often be overlooked.
Having a defined training strategy will help with employee retention, offer improved customer service and help build better relationships between your support organization and other technical teams. As an IT leader, consider the following areas to help reinforce the importance of this area to your team’s long-term success.
Identify your scope
When deciding on focus areas for your team’s training and development approach, individual and team needs should be considered when defining your scope. Some potential areas for what can be covered under your training and development program:
- Refresher training: Covering existing tools and processes already being utilized by team members.
- Implementation of new/updated tools & processes: Project go-lives and shift-left agreements.
- Upskilling areas (IT): Network, server and application.
- Business skills: Communication, financial, leadership, time management
- Individual areas of interest.
Other considerations should be your source for the training material itself. Look to incorporate both internal team options to supplement other company-wide and external vendor solutions that may exist. Building and maintaining a defined training roadmap helps to prioritize continued learning and provides consistency of opportunities for all team members across a wide range of areas.
Finally, assess what training should be considered required, recommended or optional based on any team’s needs or requirements that may exist along with any applicable timelines for completion and recertification.
Make it a Priority
Oftentimes the hardest part of building a successful training program is time allocation and budget. Having a comprehensive and adopted training curriculum takes time away from competing priorities such as day-to-day operational work in the short-term.
A leader needs to find the right balance between business objectives and personnel development. While out of scope for this article, having leadership commitment for both the time and potential funding needed is crucial for success. Factors such as in-person vs. on demand, time allocation, and managing coverage gaps should be assessed both prior to and during the rollout of a program. Tying training into development goals is another way to encourage participation from staff and prioritization from leaders in your team.
Invest in the Future
Your training program should be a major catalyst for creating professional growth for members of your team. A mature training program can help provide opportunities by:
- Building better collaboration and partnerships both within your team and across other technical areas.
- Leveraging new skills in day-to-day work.
- Providing new responsibilities such as facilitating future training sessions, putting together training content.
- Creating job-shadowing and gig roles within the company.
- Opening up promotional paths.
I’ve always encouraged team members to explore new opportunities while working within my Support teams. A good leader should always promote professional growth and not be concerned with the long-term potential attrition that may occur.
Having strong relationships, along with being honest and transparent is the best way to help people reach their career goals. That dynamic helps build a positive environment that people seek out to join.
Track your accomplishments
It’s important to track and assess the success of your training and development program with the goal of enhancing your approach over time. Adoption and implied success can be gauged in a number of ways including:
- Completion of assigned training.
- Measurable adoption of a process or tool.
- Increased operational performance metrics (examples: First Call Resolution rate or Average Handle Time).
- Increased employee engagement and manager effectiveness ratings.
- Internal/external promotions achieved.
- Certifications/degrees completed.
Don’t let training and a focus on development become a “checkbox” activity. Create an environment where accomplishments are frequently discussed, encouraged, celebrated and communicated out for awareness.