Companies today realize that using the right Learning Management System is an important step toward empowering employees to grow and learn.
In 2017, the percentage of U.S. companies using online learning reached 77%. Research from the Brandon Hall Group also found that eLearning could reduce employee training time substantially. Amazon recognized the shift and invested heavily in employee training, while a 2019 SHRM report showed that 67% of employers surveyed offered educational assistance to some or all employees.
Employee development programs are one of the best ways to tap into existing employee potential. The goal is to strengthen competencies in ways that support both individual growth and company objectives.
Why Are Learning Objectives Important for Employee Training?
Training objectives are the measurable steps a manager needs to achieve an overall training-program goal. Employee training and goal-setting are vital responsibilities for any manager. By setting attainable goals, a manager can improve performance while strengthening the company’s reputation as an employer.
A widely cited Harvard MBA study on goal setting found that participants who set goals performed significantly better than those who did not, and that written goals were associated with even stronger outcomes.
The main benefits of setting training objectives include:
- Saving the company time and money
- Determining the design process for training materials and features
- Giving learning administrators a training roadmap
- Allowing employees to set clear goals
- Helping administrators with analysis
- Bringing focus to short- and long-term business success
- Setting criteria for successful employee performance reviews
How Can You Set Appropriate Training Goals?
John Doerr’s well-known goal-setting guidance can be summarized simply: execution matters.
Before starting a training cycle, managers should conduct a Training Needs Analysis (TNA). A TNA is especially useful:
- After hiring new employees
- Before performance reviews
- When performance improvements are needed
- To facilitate career development
- When employees’ jobs change
Before crafting learning objectives, training leaders should ask:
- Does the LMS goal reflect the company’s vision for training?
- Is the goal shaped toward the intended result of a well-run program?
- What are the company’s immediate, intermediate and long-term training needs?
- What gaps exist in employee job performance?
Build Goals Around the Whole Organization
If the company employs full-time, part-time or remote employees, learning objectives should reflect the needs of the whole organization, including:
- Company stakeholders
- Training facilitators
- Contractors
- Team leads
Consider Every Employee Training Level
A program built for entry-level employees should not be identical to one designed for experienced employees. Training objectives should reflect different curriculum and material needs at each level.
Learning goals can also be mapped to the six cognitive levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy:
- Remembering: Recall previously acquired knowledge — recognize, retrieve, list, name, define and match.
- Understanding: Demonstrate comprehension — interpret, identify, classify and explain.
- Applying: Move from theory to practice — organize, plan, implement, execute and solve.
- Analyzing: Break information into components and understand relationships — categorize, classify, simplify, distinguish and compare.
- Evaluating: Exercise judgment based on knowledge — choose, compare, measure, determine, prioritize and interpret.
- Creating: Use acquired knowledge to develop something new — develop, design, improve, adapt, solve, modify and perform.
Involve Employees in the Process
The purpose of goal-setting is to help employees improve organically, so including them throughout the process is a smart choice.
Employee buy-in can:
- Increase the likelihood of success
- Make short- and long-term goals collaborative
- Support SMART goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, results-oriented and time-bound
- Increase employee commitment and ownership
- Encourage stretch goals
- Motivate continued development beyond the workplace
Link Business Objectives to Individual Goals
Organizations with effective performance-management systems often align employee goals to business priorities.
“Information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit.”
C. William Pollard, Chairman, Fairwyn Investment Company
Training facilitators should show employees how individual goals fit into the broader company picture. Turning those goals into team performance measures can increase accountability and clarity.
Adapt Learning Goals in Real Time
“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage.”
Jack Welch, former General Electric CEO
One of the biggest mistakes training managers make is setting goals at the beginning of the year and revisiting them only during reviews. Business realities change month to month, so goals should evolve with the organization rather than becoming stale.
What Great Employee Learning Goals Look Like
Learning goals are moving in the right direction when they:
- Use specific action verbs, such as: Before the next quarter, all employees need to demonstrate proficiency in using our new office communication tool.
- Include criteria for measuring success, such as 90% training attendance or a target evaluation score.
- Are concise and written with clear intent.
- Define expected outcomes.
Examples include:
- Before Q1, the training facilitator shall have in-depth knowledge of how departments within the company are run.
- All new hires must complete onboarding training within three months.
- At the end of induction training, each employee will be able to discuss the company’s vision and how it ties to their own role.
- Before Q2, conduct a feedback survey to determine what needs improvement.
- By the end of Q2, each department should have completed training based on its needs.
Making It Work
Goal-setting should not be framed as a competition among employees. Encouraging internal rivalry can demotivate some employees and alienate others. Employees with similar responsibilities should generally have comparable training goals.
It is useful to reward employees who achieve or exceed their goals. Recognition could include:
- A bonus
- Public acknowledgment
- Training certificates
- Promotions
Because training involves a human workforce, some employees will fall short of goals. The manager’s role is to provide guidance, understand areas of difficulty and build a feasible retraining plan with better objectives.
When done correctly, employee learning goals can drive real change, improving organizational commitment and clarity.
