10 ways to curate an impactful L&D strategy on a budget.
Are you a frazzled small business owner, wondering how other businesses even have time to talk about learning and development let alone put a plan or strategy in place?
When resources are stretched a learning and development strategy may seem like a far off dream, so we thought we would give you a 10 step plan to develop an impactful Learning and Development strategy without it costing the earth.
Align with business objectives/strategy
What do you need to achieve in the next 5 years? What skills do you need in your business to get you there? In order to ensure that you get the best value for money from any strategy it needs to be aligned to your business objectives. There’s no point in ploughing lots of money into expensive L&D interventions if the learning is not useful in helping you move your business towards it’s objectives. So step one, identify where you want your business to be in the next 5 years and then evaluate what skills your staff need in order to get you there. The gap will tell you what you need to concentrate on and will give you your L&D priorities for the next 5 years.
Make L&D impactful by aligning with your objectives
Make it impactful
When you are low on time and resources you should be thinking about the things that will have the most impact for you employees. You have identified your skills gap in the alignment exercise above but what will make the most impact? What is the top of your priority list? If you are low on budget think about the learning and development that will have the most impact for your business priorities. Ideally, if your budget is really tight then what will make the most impact for your business and employee’s using your existing resources or something that will cost the least amount of money.
If you are struggling use the MoSCoW project management tool to prioritise and create a list of things that are going to be the most important:
M0- the most vital thing you can’t live without
S - things you consider important but are not vital
Co - the nice-to-have’s
W - Things that provide little or no value that you can give up on.
Find out what your employees need
As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. If you are providing the wrong learning in your business and there’s is no thirst for this knowledge then people won’t learn and even if they attend the courses you provide they won’t use and embed that learning in your business.
Speak to your employee’s and find out what their learning objectives are, what would they like to know more about to help them do their job better? What will help them take your business further towards it goals? Once you have found out their goals you can provide training that is actually required and the return on investment of that training will be much more beneficial for your business. And bonus, asking your employees what learning they really need to do their job or fulfill your priorities is absolutely free.
Existing opportunities for learning in the business
You may already have a subject matter expert in your business, someone who is the go-to person for that area. A completely free way to share this knowledge is for that person to share their knowledge and expertise with the rest of your team. They can either deliver a training session or write a guidance document getting all their tacit knowledge down on paper. This is an excellent free way to ensure that everyone has access to this information and it stops that one person being the single point of failure. Different people like to learn in different ways so you could create a template bank of knowledge that includes videos and articles.
A note on Accessibility and Inclusivity
It’s always a good idea to think about accessibility needs for training and learning opportunities. For example, someone with dyslexia may prefer to listen to a you tube video rather than read an article. Also consider your industry, if you run a garage with a group of mechanics who are never in the office and don’t have access to a computer then maybe audio versions of training could be useful that they could listen to on-the-go.
Create a community of L and D advocates
Do you have people who are passionate about learning? Are there people that want to grow as part of their role? Creating a community of L&D advocates in your business that encourage others to share learning, highlight existing knowledge and ensure that there are opportunities for learning will ensure that your business is continuously learning and being held accountable in achieving it’s 5 year objectives and priorities. This may also help with employee retention and it will mean more development for staff.
Create a space for employees to talk about learning
There are lots of opportunities for learning but sometimes it’s embedding that learning that’s the most difficult thing to do. Create a space in your business where people can share learning with others. This is a completely free way to ensure that there is a knowledge transfer across your business and that people are not working in silo’s. Give your team a 20 minute ‘learning break’ where they can use your dedicated space to discuss any gaps in their knowledge, things that would make the job easier etc. This doesn’t have to be a physical space. If you are a remote team or just don’t have space in the office for this then create a teams/google chat group for learning. This is a space for employee’s to share what they learn or ask questions. However you do this, ensure that this knowledge is recorded and again link this to the ‘existing learning section’ where this knowledge is shared or stored. If there are any needs identified ensure that this is also recorded and fed back to L&D advocates.
Curate a space for employee’s to talk about learning
Use free tools so allow employees to access learning
Chat GPT is a great source of free information and there’s lots of free guidance out there regarding prompts. Remember that Chat GPT is only as good as the prompts that you enter and therefore you need to be very specific about what you ask and amend if it’s not correct.
ACAS is also a great free source of information for free advice and guidance regarding HR issues. If you have a new manager that wants some basic guidance on HR issues and what to do next ACAS are a great source of information. Remember that where employee relations issues are concerned prompt action is always better so take a look at ACAS for lots of free resources. Other ideas include accessing professional memberships and seeing if you are entitled to benefits within your membership for example, CIPD lunch and learn events.
Making use of existing tools like Breathe HR
Do you already pay a monthly subscription to Breathe HR? If so, you can use this to log and report on training and use it for logging performance management? You will then be able to run reports on training sessions and you can also manage the development of staff through the system using it to log performance reviews etc. This is also a good tool to keep an eye on a mandatory training such as health and safety and DBS. This will ensure that you keep on top of renewal dates and can you will also be able to run reports to highlights gaps and requirements.
Employee ownership
There are lots of free continuous learning and development logs out there and you can engage staff in planning their own learning. Remember that if someone is motivated to learn then they are much more likely to embed the learning and use it in their role. You can amend the template to suit and I would recommend tailoring this document to the person’s individual goals and the business priorities that we discussed at the start of this blog post. I have attached a link below to a free online CPD tool:
myCPD Portal - free online CPD record | The CPD Certification Service
Remember that you want the L&D to be impactful so focus on things that will make the biggest impact for both the individual and the business.
Measuring Impact
There are a number of free ways that you can measure impact: post-training surveys to gauge how employee’s felt about the training, Knowledge checks before and after training to check what has been learned, Performance on practical exercises, business results; for example, have sales improved, retention rates, employee engagement etc. However, if we are keeping things simple we can distill it down to the basic level of where does my business need to be in the next 5 years and do my employee’s have the skills to get me there? Focus on your biggest priority, train your staff to meet it and the impact will be clear.
If you want help crafting an impactful L&D strategy for your business or want to know more about the benefits it could bring please contact us on: 02922804455 or hello@figtreehr.co.uk to discuss your needs further.
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