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Investing in sustainable employability with a training plan

The current tight labor market is a considerable challenge for many organizations in the Netherlands. Finding new well-trained personnel is not without its challenges. And how do you ensure that once new employees are in, they stay in? By investing in learning and development opportunities, you can keep employees interested and keep them with you longer. A training plan can help companies by providing growth perspectives for new, current and future employees within the organization.

A training plan is an overview of competencies employees need to perform a particular job, combined with how employees can acquire these competencies. This plan can also shape a change in the organization. A training or training desire often stems from organizational goals. The organization would like to see a change in its employees. In what direction do employees in a company need to develop in order to achieve the (new or current) organizational objectives? By identifying these training needs in a good plan, you can direct the development of employees and make sure you have the right competencies in place.

With a well-designed plan, you can demonstrate your company's sustainable employability.

As an employer, you bind employees to your company longer because employees see (and have) opportunities to grow internally. Employees develop seniority (with guidance) and are more broadly deployable. This broader employability makes the organization as a whole more agile and flexible for the future. Moreover, employees experience more job satisfaction and less stress, which in turn works against absenteeism and attrition. Ultimately, structural investment in learning and development therefore saves costs. Even if, for example, you purchase training from different parties, you can use a training plan to create a convenient overview of the available supply.

What does a training plan look like?

A training plan is part of the training policy. In your training policy, you establish how you want to achieve your organizational objectives through employee learning and development. A training plan specifies the learning interventions needed to achieve organizational objectives.

A training plan can be created at three levels:

  • At the individual level, by job group or job profile;
  • At the team level;
  • At the organizational level, by department, for example.

In a learning line per job category, the organization can determine what job mandatory knowledge, skills and attitude aspects are for an employee. These aspects can be extracted from job descriptions, work processes and vacancy texts. These often describe concisely what the employee does in a particular job, what training and/or experience he must have and what responsibilities, rights and duties are associated with the job. For each job group, you can map out a learning line with training courses that are already available in the organization, in order to determine which training is still missing. Further development advice for future training can then be given.

For the purpose of the training plan or in the context of personal development, individually completed 360º feedback scans, an overview of additional tasks and/or a portfolio folder can be valuable additions. In addition to the actual job, this also maps out the employee's additional competencies and attitude.

Précon supports, possibly in conjunction with our e-learning subscription

Précon can advise and support companies in creating a training plan. We also offer clients a training plan in combination with the purchase of our e-learning subscription. This subscription allows the company to have access to the full online range of public training from Précon, so the employee can decide where, how and when the training is followed. The training can be followed at your own pace and obtained certificates are directly in the learning management system (LMS).

For example, UCC Coffee has been using Précon's training plan in conjunction with the subscription for several years. In the training plan, we identified how important a topic is and how often a course should be repeated: for example, once a year or once every three years. Based on this, Précon recommended an annual schedule per quarter to ensure as much as possible that the same topics can be taken in the same quarter or follow each other logically. In this, we also take into account the time load of the different trainings.

We distinguish three types of training by function:

  • General basic trainings: trainings that form the mandatory basis for quality management, trainings that are also used during on-the-job training and deal with general topics such as safety, hygiene and quality.
  • Job requirement training: training that provides knowledge and skills important to function independently within the relevant job profile.
  • Optional trainings: trainings freely available to all, which can be attended to deepen on related topics, to inspire personal development or to stimulate knowledge development, for example.

For example, a job group may include the following general and job mandatory training:

1x per 3 years Course name Review 2023 2024
General Food safety (HACCP) 1x per year Q1 Q1
Food Defense & Food Fraud 1x per year Q2 Q2
Work safely 1x per year Q3 Q3
Job requirement Pest protection and control 1x per 3 years Q4
Working safely with hazardous materials 1x per 3 years Q4
Don't wilt! 1x per 2 years Q3
With a training plan, you can demonstrate in an audit that you have secured employee competencies, possibly with a set schedule of training sessions taken quarterly.

In doing so, you are working as a company to increase quality awareness among staff. The trainings are well distributed over a longer period of time, so that it remains manageable for employees to attend the basic and job mandatory trainings and so that you keep employees interested.

Benefits of Elzi

If you use the e-learning subscription from Elzi, the training plan can be set up completely in the learning management system. For example, employees can be enrolled in a desired job group, after which all job requirements and relevant trainings are linked to the trainee. Signaling functions can also be set up so that training courses are attended on time. In this way, the system can take a lot of work off organizations' hands!

Need advice or support?

Not only the learning management system Elzi can support companies in setting up learning and development, Précon can also provide further support by advising on training plans. The development of this plan can even be completely outsourced to Précon. Want to know more about our capabilities? Check the training plan page or contact us at learning@precongroup.com or +31 (0)30 - 65 66 010.

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