Training management has several objectives: developing employee skills, strengthening the company's ability to adapt to change, promoting motivation and commitment, and meeting legal requirements in the area of training.
Rely on a simple process that combines your company's strategic goals with the needs of your employees. This will allow you to design your training management system in an efficient and sustainable manner.
What does training management involve?
Training management encompasses all activities, processes, and strategies used to plan, organize, implement, and evaluate training measures for employees in a company.
It is divided into several areas:
Didactic design: Development of training programs, design of learning formats, creation of learning content
Organization and administration: Planning of training, selection of external providers, organization of rooms and infrastructure, administrative processing
Analysis and controlling: Assessment of training needs, tracking of learning progress, evaluation of the effectiveness of training
Legal framework for training in Switzerland
In Switzerland, companies have legal obligations regarding the training of their employees.
1. Adaptation to the workplace and the labor market: Employers are obliged to provide employees with the qualifications they need to perform their jobs and remain employable, particularly in view of technological and organizational developments in the industry. This obligation arises from the principle of care under labor law.
The competence development plan is a central and indispensable tool for coordinating the necessary training.
2. Occupational safety and health protection: Employers must ensure that employees receive adequate training in occupational safety and health protection. This applies to all employees, regardless of their contract type or workload, especially when changing jobs, changing tasks, or after long absences.
Good to know: Mandatory training counts as working time and must take place during working hours. Employees are still entitled to their wages.
3. Financing training: Companies contribute to the financing of continuing vocational training. In Switzerland, this varies depending on the industry and canton, for example through internal budgets, collective labor agreements, or industry-specific training funds.
4. Development discussions: Regular employee reviews are a key tool for discussing development prospects and training needs. They form an important basis for training management and individual career development.
Training as a lever for performance and commitment
Training to retain and motivate employees
Continuing vocational training is a key lever for:
Strengthening the employability of employees: Updating existing skills or developing new ones is crucial for advancing in one's own field of work and remaining attractive on the job market in the long term.
Motivate and retain employees: Training programs sponsored by the company are a concrete sign of its commitment to the professional development and well-being of its employees. At the same time, they express recognition for the work and commitment of the employees.
Promote cohesion between teams: Group training sessions, workshops, or joint learning formats strengthen exchange and cooperation. The result is teams that work more closely together, communicate more clearly, and operate more efficiently.
Supporting internal mobility and career reorientation: Regular training opportunities enable employees to develop within the company. Job changes or even career reorientation can be approached with much more confidence within the framework of well-structured crossboarding.
Promoting equal opportunities in the work environment: Employees have access to a shared training catalog that they can adapt to their individual needs and those of their team, department, or company. This allows employees to specifically supplement the skills that are relevant to their own professional development.
Training as a factor for competitiveness
The training of employees is also crucial for the continued existence and sustainable success of the company. It enables:
Adapting to market changes and anticipating trends: Employees who are trained in new technologies and industry-specific methods respond more quickly and flexibly to change. This strengthens the company's competitiveness.
Improve the company's performance: Professionally managed training provides optimal support for talented employees and helps them reach their full potential. Well-trained teams are more motivated and productive.
Strengthen the employer brand: Investing in professional development makes the company more attractive to existing employees and future talent. Employees become more focused on the long term.
Promote innovation: Those who are encouraged to learn and reflect are more agile, more likely to share knowledge, and more willing to try new ways of working.
Comply with standards and regulations: In regulated fields of activity, continuous training is crucial to meet current requirements and reduce risks such as sanctions or operational disruptions.
4 tips for successful training management in your company
Create a skills development plan
A skills development plan covers all measures that are relevant to your employees' skills, regardless of whether they are initiated by the company or by the employees themselves. These include, among other things:
Mandatory training, such as legally required training, safety-related training, or industry-specific certifications.
Voluntary training, such as courses to expand professional or personal skills, skills assessments, or procedures for recognizing previously acquired qualifications.
The skills development plan is an important tool for the structured management of training. It provides a comprehensive overview of needs and enables the development of a training roadmap that contributes to the achievement of company goals. It answers key HR questions:
Which employees should be trained and when?
Which skills have priority?
How can development paths be designed in a meaningful way?
Every company, regardless of its size, can create its own skills development plan after consulting with employee representatives. This plan can apply to all employees, regardless of their employment contract.
The following applies to a successful skills development plan:
Clearly define the overarching goals of the plan: First, clarify which skills the company needs in the long term. Discussions with management help to gain an overall perspective that is central to the development plan – for example, with regard to digitalization, new legal requirements, or other changes in the environment. This provides a basis for determining the most important learning priorities. At the same time, it is important to align the company's needs as closely as possible with the expectations and development wishes of the employees.
Determine current and future training needs as precisely as possible: The development plan must take into account both current training needs and the professional development wishes of the employees. A careful analysis of appraisal interviews and employee reviews provides valuable insights for this. Supplement this data with direct discussions with employees and their supervisors to obtain as complete a picture as possible of the skills that are needed today and will be relevant in the future.
Define performance indicators and track them continuously: At the outset, define clear performance indicators and monitor their development over the entire period. These KPIs (key performance indicators) enable you to regularly assess the effectiveness of the measures and make targeted adjustments if necessary. The selection of indicators is based on the specific objectives of the skills development plan and can be adjusted over time. Typical KPIs include the number of employees trained, participant satisfaction, the completion rate of training courses, the success rate of certifications offered, the turnover rate in relevant areas, and progress in developing new skills.
Choose the right training formats
There are a variety of formats and modalities for training. The biggest challenge for HR is to generate sufficient engagement for the selected offerings and to design learning formats in such a way that they remain relevant and motivating.
Face-to-face training: Employees physically attend training units conducted by trainers either at the company or at external training centers.
E-learning: This fully digital format offers a high degree of flexibility, both in terms of travel expenses and the planning of learning sequences. Even at a distance, there are now numerous effective learning methods available, such as COOCs (Corporate Open Online Courses), serious games, microlearning, and social learning, which further promote engagement.
Blended learning: Blended learning combines face-to-face learning and digital learning formats. The approach combines modern learning technologies with the strength of personal interaction, thereby addressing different learning needs.
Workplace-based learning (practice-oriented training): This form of training uses real work situations to build practical skills. Employees work on specific tasks with clearly defined learning objectives and then reflect on what happened in the work process together with an expert. The big advantage lies in the high degree of accuracy in terms of the actual requirements of the company and the specific challenges of everyday work.
Training can be completed in two ways:
Independently: Employees use learning resources on their own and set their own pace.
Guided: A learning or coaching team actively supports participants and works with a shared schedule.
Depending on the training format, employees can receive a certificate, diploma, or recognition of their previously acquired skills. However, there is no guaranteed recipe for success when it comes to motivation. Which learning formats are best suited depends on several factors: the goals of the training program, the target group, the available budget, and the skills to be developed. It is often worthwhile to combine different formats. This allows different learning needs to be covered, variety to be created, and resources to be used sensibly at the same time.
If you would like to explore this topic in more depth, our article provides an overview of the different types of training and their specific features.
Optimize your training offerings
There are various ways to finance training more affordably or in a more targeted manner.
Many industry and professional associations, regional programs, specialist organizations, and public agencies offer funding or contribution models to support job-related training. It is worth finding out what is available in your own industry or region, for example for digital skills, professional qualifications, or job market-oriented training.
Internal company models can also help:
Companies can finance training courses in full or in part.
Individual development agreements make it possible to plan training courses together.
Depending on their role, employees can also receive their own learning budget or defined learning time.
For employees who are reorienting their careers or need specific qualifications, cantonal programs, retraining opportunities, training funds, or subsidized specialist courses are available, depending on the industry.
Other proven approaches can help to ensure that the training budget is used in a targeted and effective manner.
Prioritize the identified needs: Training should align with both the strategic priorities of the company and the expectations of employees. One of the biggest challenges is identifying those individuals who have the greatest need for development, such as employees with significant skill gaps compared to the requirements of their role or key individuals who are particularly important for the economic development of the company.
Take advantage of internal learning opportunities: Internal formats such as mentoring, coaching, or a skills exchange make it possible to utilize existing know-how within the company and pass it on in a targeted manner. This strengthens internal expertise without incurring additional costs for external offerings.
Bundle training courses where it makes sense: By combining training needs, better conditions can be achieved. To do this, it is important to have a clear overview of all upcoming training courses. This bundling can take place not only company-wide, but also beyond, for example within a group of companies or an industry association.
Use software for training management
Training management software is a valuable tool for everyone responsible for training in the company. It supports the planning, coordination, and tracking of all training activities and ensures that information is bundled in one place and can be used efficiently.
1. All information in one central location: The software brings together all elements related to training paths: training requests, programs, training calendars, learning materials, training courses completed to date, participant feedback, and much more. This makes it much easier to make informed decisions, for example, about the right time for training, the most suitable formats, or levers that can improve the learning path.
2. Automation of administrative tasks: Many organizational activities can be automated: registrations, appointment management, reminders, or the collection of evaluations. This leaves HR more time for activities that create real added value.
3. Personalization of learning paths: The software can be configured to take individual skills and development needs into account. This allows training programs to be better tailored to employees' career goals and learning paths to be designed in a targeted manner.
4. Transparent performance monitoring: Configurable dashboards allow the effectiveness and progress of training programs to be tracked in real time. Weak signals become visible, allowing for timely reactions or adjustments. In short, training management software gives HR a clear overview of the company's training needs, facilitates the development of a skills development plan, and supports the operational and strategic management of training in day-to-day business as well as in the long term.
