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Employee Training Mistakes

These are the Mistakes you MUST Avoid in Employee Training

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The success of your company is directly dependent on how competent your employees are at doing their job. Employees with previous experience in the exact field that they are going to be working in at your company will generally have no problem with keeping up with their workload, but you won’t always get lucky with this type of employee. More often than not, you’re going to get a worker that, while qualified, has no previous experience with the type of work he or she is going to be performing, and so they’ll probably need someone to show them the ropes, as they say.

Because of this, it’s often necessary to have some kind of training program for new employees, a program that will be able to properly educate them and give them all the necessary abilities for the work they are going to be doing in the company. Now, creating a solid training program and properly putting it into practice is no easy feat, so educators often tend to make mistakes. Fortunately, these mistakes can be anticipated – you are far from the first person to have made them – and rectified before they cause any problems for the employees taking the training. In this post, we want to talk about some of the most common mistakes that educators make when putting a training program into practice, so without further ado, here they are.

Too Much Information

One of the most common mistakes that educators make when first initiating the training program is that they overwhelm the trainees with a bunch of info. And no matter how well you categorize it, you’ve got to realize that the human brain is really not that good at remembering different types of information during a short period of time. It’s a bit like when you listen to someone explain the rules to a board game you’ve never played before – you kind of absorb some of the info, the gist of it if you will, but you won’t really get it all down until you actually sit down and play the game. And you’ll certainly need to be reminded of the details more than once.

So, rather than bombard your students with all kinds of information and hoping that they’ll soak in the most important stuff, it’s better to just give them only the most important stuff at first, and then build up from there.

Failing to Motivate

Any time that we try to learn something new, our minds will immediately go to the question: “How can I use this information? Is this really something that I will need in my work?”

And as an educator, you really need to be aware of this fact and adapt your material so that your students always know why they’re learning whatever they’re learning. Lots of different examples are always good because they make the material of the employee training program tangible for the trainees and enable them to see the value of what they are trying to learn.

Lack of Communication

It’s important to realize that we as people are all different in terms of how quickly and efficiently we can learn a new skill. Some will pick it up pretty quickly, others might need more time, and what might seem like child’s play to one person can prove significantly more challenging to another, and vice versa. Because of this, it’s important to always keep in contact with your students and be aware of how well they’re mastering the material, and clear up any uncertainties that they might have over any subject.

Also, encourage your students to ask as many questions as they find necessary. Asking questions about one’s uncertainties not only clears up the uncertainty, but it is also a much more active and involved learning process than simply listening to a lecture. By involving oneself in a conversation with the lecturer, one’s attention span is significantly more powerful, and so it’s far more likely that the student will remember whatever it is that the question was about in the long-term.

Large Groups

The larger the group of trainees is, the harder it is to keep a sustainable level of communication between the students and the teacher. It is, therefore, good practice to keep this number to about a dozen or even fewer than that. The fewer people there are, the more effective the training will be unless you use some kind of software aided training program that can keep up with any number of trainees.

Using our knowledge testing software GetCertified, for example, it is absolutely possible to teach a large group of people at the same time, but only because you’re aided by a powerful computer program. If you want to keep the lesson as organic as possible, however, the number of participants is definitely something that you should keep under control.

Generic Training

Humans like diversity – we always have, and the less diverse a subject or lecture is, the more effort we need to put in to keep our focus and attention. This is why generic lectures that are always initiated and conducted in the same way will undoubtedly fail at educating your employees properly. Make sure that your classroom atmosphere is as dynamic as the training will allow, and you’ll find that it is much easier to keep trainee’s attention, and ultimately allow them to produce better results at the end of the training.

Summary

That about covers all of the most important mistakes you should always look out for when conducting employee training. To sum up, you need to make sure not to overload your students with a lot of information, make sure that your lessons are meaningful and motivating to your students. It’s also important to limit the number of trainees taking the training at the same time and encourage the students to initiate communication with the teacher in the form of questions. And lastly, make sure that your lectures are interesting and diverse, as that is way more likely to keep a trainee’s attention and thus help them master the material a lot better. Good luck!

Driving Schools Testing – Case Study

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Driving schools are constantly facing with the need for testing of its students. This can be a big cost for driving schools, because most of them are still using the traditional way of testing, paper-based testing.

Orthodox driving test

If you are told that the procedure of passing the driving test here is simple, they have informed you wrong. Maybe the test won’t be that hard, if you study, but until you have reached them, there is a lot of paper work to be done.

The first thing you do is go to a licensed driving school and pick up the necessary forms there. The forms are then taken to a licensed eye doctor where you need to be examined and the forms fulfilled, of course. The next station is medical doctor. He also has to fill in the forms. Every form filled in is being paid. That is when you go to the driving school to take lessons. Then you are being scheduled the test. In case you have failed the test, you have to pay to do it again, as well as you have paid it for the first time. It seems to be a normal thing for them, but everywhere in the world, it sounds strange, but it is simply their way of doing thing.

Driving schools – practicing tests

Driving Test Complete is easily the most comprehensive PC software of its kind. Includes all the Official DVSA questions, answers, explanations, case studies, hazard clips and full driving test plus lots more.

This product offers you hundreds of Hazard Perception Test clips to practice on with comprehensive tutorials and videos on how to make your first test your last. Includes the 26 Official DVSA sample clips.

No other product offers an interactive learn to drive program that shows you step by step how to develop your skills using LDCs highly acclaimed LD System of driving tuition.

No other product offers a more accurate video of a full driving test.

Professional voice-over is used extensively throughout the product for help, information, learning notes, tutorials, animations, video, questions, answers, explanations and hint advice.

The Product is made up of 8 distinct programs: Theory Test program (consisting of many different parts such as information module, learning module, exam testing module and review), Hazard Perception program (consisting of information learning module, exam testing module and practice learning module), Learning to drive program, Show me Tell me program, Practical Driving Test program, Highway Code plus program and many others.

State level – Driver certification

One more advantage of using this software is that no one should wait for the results any more, they would be known almost instantly.

Since government seems to search for the profit all the time, here is the way. A lot of certificates can be given in no time. Both future drivers and the government would be satisfied. They shall briefly think about that as a serious project since we have already gone through a lot of them.

Analysis – of great importance

Driving Schools Driving License

Losing the license, it happens all the time to many people. The thing is that when they lose it, it is not being registered anywhere so it repeats constantly, without even being noticed. This changes things a bit. Everything is being recorded so if someone has lost it, it will be seen in the system that he has been looking for another one. This method can make you realize who the reckless drivers are. And, on the other hand maybe it will make them keep their things better and in a safer place. This will also save time to both them and you.

Integration possibilities

What would be even better than this is? Integration. This means that everything can be found in one and a same place. There can be included insurance, car companies and all the things connected to this. This will prevent both drivers from wasting time while going to a lot of different places gathering all the necessary things they need. It will also make everything go faster and there would not be needed for the crowd to be made.

YouTestMe Get Certified is a perfect solution for driving schools that have a constant need of testing and certification.

 

Employee Training and Certification and Motivation

Employee Training – Government Edition

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Little known fact: employee training is not just for quiz makers and private companies! Government training and state testing are also important on a much larger scale. It just so happens that the private sector is not the only one in need of skilled workforce. Regardless of what you may have heard about government employees in general, they too need to educate and better themselves and there are all sorts of things about employee training that agencies have yet to learn, in addition to those they have reluctantly adopted.

Why is Government Training Necessary?

When was the last time anyone has heard of a budget increase for a government institution, other than in times of a huge national crisis? And when was the last time somebody working for the government got in front of a camera and started talking about pending budget cuts? You’ve heard a lot more of the latter, and this is kind of endemic in most countries. On the one hand, we have people who are supposed to be in charge of things of extreme importance like making and enforcing laws and policies. On the other, many of these agencies could not even pass the regulatory inspection that they themselves condone, support or are trying to enforce.

It is the equivalent of seeing a police car parked on a spot reserved for people with handicaps. In fact, even when these agencies do decide to modernize, it is hastily executed and any subsequent updates are sketchy at best. At worst, they are nonexistent, and it puts us all at risk. The list of things they should be doing but aren’t is almost as long as the list of excuses they have come up with to counter them. It seems policy updates seem to reach the general public faster than they do the people who are supposed to be acting upon them.

There are people whose jobs involve risking their lives or saving other people, and you kind of need them to take regular competency tests, like paramedics and cops. Seeing an overweight cop or a soldier has long since stopped to phase anyone. Instead of enforcing rules and regulations, the military is figuring out ways for overweight people and those who would otherwise fail at the physical to be allowed in because they lack the manpower as well as the resources to hire professionals. Or people manning nuclear silos being forced to use those huge floppy disks from the ’70s.

Or something as trivial as waiting in line for a new photo ID because of “system failure” or some software update. It is scary when regular people have more technology at their disposal than government officials and workers.

Introducing Software into Employee Training in Governments

Employee training software has been around for years, and not just as a concept. In some instances, it is literally the same software but at least some of it comes from a time when the priorities were still straight. When using any kind of software, the age-old fear of a catastrophic failure that would leave millions of people in distress and other reliability issues are still relevant even to this day. Aside from that, they need something that can be quickly applied all across the country. If it takes too long to create universal tests and organize groups, this simply will not do. The more versatile, the better. If it is automatic, this would be just swell. When your tests are of pen and paper variety, there are numerous issues from  lack of standardization, to fear of cheating and don’t even get us started on the grading process. With computer tests, everything is done automatically, with a push of a button. Except for filling out the blank spaces – that is for the trainees, of course. The efficiency is vastly superior in almost every way, except when you want to grade an essay or something like that. But even that is easier to do in an electronic form. The only people who are against this are the old-fashioned employees who are scared of technology.

The Most Important Thing – Security

As with most things, safety is going to be a serious issue. Those urban myths about 14-year-olds with laptops emailing nuclear launch codes to Pentagon may be exaggerated, but they illustrate the core issue. They have a lot to learn from companies and sites such as Oracle, whose databases tend to be the most secure of them all. Additional safety measures need to be applied and they need to be constantly updated as any government site is under threat these days.

Versatility of Use

As we have mentioned, the best case scenario would be the possibility to merge databases and share software between different agencies and similar departments. For instance, giving police access to the driving test database might even save some lives on the long run, but the potential for abuse also increases with every such “solution”. As much as we all want a “one size fits all” solution, it could not possibly be available right now. Or could it be?

One of the solutions that could fit the needs of employees training in government institutions is YouTestMe Get Certified. Get Certified allows instructors to generate tests and create custom designed certificates for employees and significantly reduce employee training costs.

Employee Certification

Employee Certification in a Modern Way

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Employee certification is a major tool for modern businesses, but there are lots of things to consider – after all, who could be trusted with such an important task? Major companies have plenty of resources for their own certification, but most businesses resort to other means. Online certification, for instance is a splendid new way of creating certificates, but beware: not any quiz maker will suffice, only the best of the best!

Is Employee Certification Necessary?

Let us be clear on one thing: certification is not an easy or convenient process, but it is a necessary one in this day and age. It is possibly the most important aspect that will remain a constant for a long time, regardless if you are a genitor or a top-rank executive. The job market is so packed, that there are plenty of applicants for any kind of position – and they all claim to possess the necessary knowledge and skills. But how would this be proven? Back in the day, they could be hired on a temporary base and retained or fired later on, depending on their skills or lack thereof.

However, many companies simply cannot afford this trial and error process. Certificates are a great way around this problem; they may not be tackling it directly, but at least this way there is a guarantee that your employees know what they are doing. Another thing about certificates is that they can be made for literally any kind of position, and if they are done online, the costs can be lowered even further.

Using Software in the Employee Certification Process

There are numerous ways in which advanced software components can affect learning process in a meaningful way.  For instance, great many high-salary positions are reserved for people with some degree of computer skills, regardless of how good they might be at their actual work. Besides, the whole point of having a certificate for a certain position is the ability to standardize the skills, training, knowledge and expertise, and using the same software component can be extremely beneficial with this in mind. It means hundreds or even thousands of people can be trained and tested under virtually the same conditions and held to the same standard. The sheer ability to mass-produce competent workforce cannot be neglected.

Some certificates are for life, while others must be renewed from time to time, where the individual is ‘encouraged’ to keep learning new skills and advance his or her knowledge just to stay competitive. Also, when it comes to online certification, the fact that the candidate does not have to be physically present in order to receive instructions, take the test or receive the certificate means that even people who have to work for a living are not deprived from the opportunity to learn and better themselves. A lot of single parents and low-wage workers simply do not have the kind of schedule where they can be physically present at a location for an official education (nor can they afford it), so this is their only chance of improving their lot in life. Advanced software is the key to this change, as it would not be possible without it.

As for benefits of certification on an individual level, they depend on the kind of certification we are talking about. For instance, there is an entire list of benefits of Microsoft certification.

Employee Certification and Training Illustration

A Case Study on Employee Certification

There are many studies that show a correlation between advanced certification software being implemented and the quality of work being done taking a noticeable bump. After all, it stands to reason that if employees are given access to better education as a part of their jobs, they will be more productive and be able to do a lot more things that usual. For instance, there was a study in 2011 that showed that 60% of 700 certified experts that took part in the study received new job offers as a direct result of their certification. The benefits for the employees are tried and proven, but what about the companies themselves?

Well, if we put aside the fact that a satisfied employee is a good employee, the essential skills that people are being certified for can be applied to the benefit of the company. Since software can be customized for any kind of knowledge or skill, it can be applied on any position and therefore improve the quality of personnel by a huge margin.

What Does the Future Hold?

The fact is, certificates have become such an integral part of modern business that it is hard to imagine a future where they will not be obligatory in some shape or form. Even today, most major companies do not even consider hiring candidates who have not been certified; they consider them a waste of time and resources. This process of selection that favors people with certificates will only add to their popularity and they will become so widespread that people will be getting certificates for just about any knowledge or marketable skill. Any company that gets ahead of this trend will surely reap the benefits in the long run!

YouTestMe – Get Certified can be the perfect solution to a company’s certification process. Its extensive capabilities and features will allow you to create tests efficiently and design custom certificates for your employee certification needs. You can even restrict user access to your local network. Check out the product page for more details.