5 Types of Training Programs You Should Know

Educating your customers and employees (of all kinds) is an important task no matter what industry your organization falls within. Providing your employees and customers with ample high-quality learning opportunities is a great way to improve productivity at your organization, boost morale, retain customers and much more.

There are many different ways to implement customer or employee training and many other purposes it can be used for. One of the best ways to deliver training to your employees is with a learning management system (LMS). 

A learning management system provides many different tools and features that can make it a lot easier to equip your customers and employees with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. 

Depending on which industry your organization operates in, you can use a learning management system to accomplish a variety of types of training and development. Throughout the rest of this article, we’ll break down some of the ways you can use an LMS by industry.

Employee Training

Training for employees is one of the most important kinds of training to offer. Employee training is the education you provide to the people who work at your company to help them develop skills and knowledge that enables them to improve at their jobs. There are many different types of employee training, just like there are many different types of training needs in an organization.

For example, some different kinds of employee training are:

• Onboarding for new employees
• Upskilling to aid continual professional growth
• Ongoing product education to help employees remain experts

Learning how to develop a training program for employees is one of the best things you can do for the health of your company—here are a few statistics to show you why employee training is so important:

• 58% of employees would rather learn at their own pace. 
• 94% of employees say they are more likely to stay with their current employer if they provide opportunities for ongoing education.
• 70% of employees say they would consider quitting their job and moving to another company that invests more in employee education.

Saas Customer Training

Another way to use learning management software is to train customers. Software as a service (SaaS) companies can benefit especially from implementing more effective customer training tools. While businesses throughout every industry need ways of educating their customers effectively, software usually has a steeper learning curve than most other kinds of products. 

SaaS customer training can help you deliver many different types of learning materials to your customers, including:

• Onboarding resources
• Product updates
• Advanced strategies for getting more out of your software

Here are a couple of the most exciting potential benefits of using a learning management system to educate your customers about your software products:

Product Adoption

Product adoption is the process your customers undergo as they learn about a product and begin to incorporate it into their lives. When a customer recognizes how a product can help them and uses it successfully for that purpose on a regular basis, full product adoption has been achieved. Getting customers to this point with a software product requires plenty of customer training resources.

Customer Retention

Product adoption is closely related to customer retention. When your customers recognize your products' value and use them all the time, they are much more likely to remain loyal customers. Customers who don’t understand your products (and therefore aren’t receiving value from them) are much more likely to churn.

Gig Worker Training

You can also use a learning management system for gig worker training. Gig worker training is the process of educating a workforce made up of temporary or freelance workers. Training gig workers can be very difficult because they have a large degree of autonomy and are not likely to be able to gather for scheduled training.

A learning management system can make it easier to train gig workers with busy schedules who are spread out across the globe. A learning management system can deliver training for gig workers that’s accessible from anywhere, at any time (as long as the learner has an internet connection).

Some specific benefits of improving gig worker training include:

• Certifications can motivate gig workers as they progress and gain new skills.
• Better education leads to faster onboarding (typically a challenge for a disparate workforce).
• Better training can equip gig workers to handle customer complaints more effectively.

The gig economy is rapidly growing. More than 59 million people in the United States currently work in the gig economy, and that number is projected to rise to over 90 million by the end of 2028. Improving gig worker training at your organization is a great way to prepare for this rising trend.

Healthcare Training

Healthcare organizations can also benefit a great deal from a training program. Training for healthcare employees is actually one of the most important kinds of employee training. It’s essential for healthcare workers to remain fully up to date about the latest medical technologies and best practices in order to provide the best possible care.

There are all kinds of different training programs examples in the healthcare industry. Some of the most effective training is built and delivered using a healthcare LMS. Using a learning management system is one of the best ways to create a comprehensive healthcare employee training strategy for your organization.

Besides internal clinical training, an LMS could also be used to provide sales training for organizations that sell medical products. Just like in any other type of business, sales teams in the medical industry need to be product experts in order to sell effectively. A learning management system can provide an accessible and effective learning method about new medical products and technologies.

Real Estate Agent Training

Practically every industry can benefit from employee training. Another great example is the real estate industry. Real estate employee training creates a number of advantages:

• Better tool adoption
• More opportunities for agents to improve skills
• Easier recruitment of new agents

Learning management software is a great tool for educating real estate agents. If you work in real estate, you know that it’s a busy lifestyle. Many real estate agents simply don’t have the time to sit and complete long training courses or attend scheduled, in-person seminars. However, providing real estate agents with opportunities to continually grow and hone their skills is still of the utmost importance.

A learning management system is a great solution to this problem. Learning management software allows learners to engage with bite-sized modules whenever they have time, from whichever location their work brings them to. This way, real estate agents can take advantage of opportunities for ongoing training at their own pace in whatever manner works best for them.

Manufacturing Training

Another kind of employee training that’s important to consider is manufacturing employee training. A learning management system can facilitate multiple types of training in management and any other kind of position that’s in need of better learning opportunities. 

Some common examples of ways improved employee education can benefit manufacturing companies:

• Improved safety
• Smoother implementation of new processes
• Easier adoption of new equipment

A learning management system is a great choice of tool for educating manufacturing employees because it can be so versatile. Manufacturing employees often need to possess various skills to perform their jobs well. A learning management system like Northpass is highly customizable and can support all different types of content. A learning management system can also make it much easier to keep a large library of training content on various skills organized. 

With a learning management system, manufacturing companies can provide versatile training to their employees to help them succeed with a diverse range of tasks and responsibilities.

Methods of Determining Training Needs

As you can see, there are many different ways you can apply a customer or employee training strategy in various industries. Using a learning management system, you can craft a training program that works for all types of training needs. 

However, the first hurdle of building a customer and/or employee training program is figuring out what those training needs are. You need some effective methods of determining training needs before you can begin to decide how to meet them.

No two training programs, whether they’re employee training programs, customer training programs, gig worker training programs, corporate training programs or any other kind, are exactly the same. To build an effective training program for your organization, you must know your audience and tailor your strategy to their needs.

One way to evaluate training needs is to administer assessments using a learning management system like Northpass. This can help you identify which critical skills or knowledge your employee or customer base lacks. Then, you can begin building courses to address those needs, starting with the most important knowledge gaps first.