15 Types Of Employee Development Programs

Employee training is crucial for the growth and success of any organization, serving as the cornerstone for building a skilled workforce. According to a report by the Association for Talent Development, companies that invest in comprehensive employee development programs enjoy a 24% higher profit margin than those that don't prioritize employee development.

Imagine you just hired a new teammate for a crucial project. They're enthusiastic and eager to learn, but wouldn't you feel more confident if they had some training first? – An effective employee development program helps you provide essential insights into the company's operations, policies, and expectations, equipping them with the knowledge and confidence to contribute meaningfully from the outset. 

Employee training and development programs are not just about ticking boxes; they're about investing in your people. 

What Is An Employee Development Program?

An employee development program refers to a structured series of activities aimed at teaching employees new skills essential for the organization's growth. These skills could range from technical expertise to vocational or managerial abilities.

While learning and development initiatives encompass a broader approach to enhancing overall human resource capabilities, corporate training programs boost immediate production efficiency, morale, and retention rates, thus demonstrating the organization’s commitment to employee development. In fact, SHRM studies show that companies with robust training initiatives experience lower turnover rates and higher employee satisfaction levels. 

These corporate programs are designed to assist new hires during onboarding and empower experienced professionals through ongoing skill development. L&D experts and instructional designers often collaborate to tailor the training content, aligning personal growth with organizational goals, and promoting competitiveness, innovation, and readiness to tackle future challenges across teams.

So what are the different types of employee development programs?

Let us crack the top 15 types of training programs beneficial for your organization:

15 Types Of Employee Development Programs

Here, we will show you the three most common types of employee development programs and break them down into categories to help you understand all types of corporate training programs for your employees.

1. Foundational Employee Development Program
2. Orientation Training
3. Employee Onboarding Training
4. Compliance Training
5. Safety & Emergency Preparedness Training
6. Skills Development Program
7. Soft Skills Training
8. Technical Training
9. Product-Based Training
10. Employee Upskilling Training
11. Employee Reskilling Training
12. Quality Assurance Training
13. Customized Employee Development Program
14. Team Training
15. Cross-Team Training
16. Sales Training
17. Leadership Training
18. Diversity Training

1. a. Orientation Training

Orientation training refers to the initial process of introducing new hires to your company’s culture, values, team policies, and procedures at the outset of their employment. These training programs benefit both employers and employees. It helps your new employees learn more about the company, prepare for their job responsibilities, and contribute to the organization’s success in the right way. 

Benefits:

• Provides clear guidance from the start
• Saves time and resources
• Boosts employee engagement and morale
• Ensures that new hires have the necessary tools and resources

2. b. Employee Onboarding Training

The onboarding training refers to an even more comprehensive process of helping your new employees settle in and take up new challenges and responsibilities more swiftly. The employee orientation typically lasts 1-2 days, while the onboarding process is often followed in the 30-60-90 process, where the managers usually conduct post-training surveys and post-onboarding surveys to understand how effective the training and onboarding process is.

Benefits:

• Ensures new hires are well-prepared to succeed in their roles 
• Fosters a strong team culture 
• Strengthens the relationship between existing and new employees
• Improves trust and confidence in managers

3. c. Compliance Training

This is a type of workplace training that is designed to educate the new hires on the laws, rules, regulations, and policies applicable to their day-to-day operations and job functioning. Some of the most important areas included in workplace compliance training are workplace safety, anti-harassment laws, diversity and inclusion training, data protection and privacy laws, and code of conduct. It also includes industry-specific regulations such as POSH, HIPAA, and GDPR. 

The goal is to ensure that all your employees comply with the business standards and maintain ethical decorum in the workplace. Compliance training ensures that employees and employers operate efficiently.

Benefits:

• Promotes ethical behavior among all employees
• Lowers the chances of workplace incidents and emergencies
• Ensures that everyone knows the right actions to take when problems arise

4. d. Safety & Emergency Preparedness Training

Safety and emergency training equips your employees to handle workplace hazards, accidents, and emergencies more effectively. It allows them to understand workplace safety standards and take the necessary measures as and when required.

This training often includes topics such as first aid, fire safety, evacuation or lockdown procedures, and the understanding of heavy machinery or equipment at the workplace. Although it is not an essential employee development program, providing safety training would significantly reduce the likelihood of accidents and injuries, thus promoting a safe work environment.

Benefits: 

• Helps prevent accidents at work by teaching employees safe practices
• Prepares them to handle emergencies in case of an accident
• Fosters a safe work environment

5. a. Soft Skills Training

Soft skills training is crucial in employee development programs, as it improves team collaboration efforts and communication skills. It helps your employees learn and adapt to the changes and become an evolved person both personally and professionally. 

Soft skills training is crucial in employee development programs, as it improves team collaboration efforts and communication skills. It helps your employees learn and adapt to the changes and become an evolved person both personally and professionally.

Benefits: 

• Enhances teamwork and boosts adaptability
• Increases personal and professional growth capabilities

6. b. Technical Training

With the evolving market trends, organizations have started to update their legacy-old software applications in order to avoid the risks of falling behind in the competition. So while the organization evolves with the latest technologies, it is essential to provide technical training to the employees, ensuring they understand the technical aspects with better clarity.

As learning and development experts, you can collaborate with the subject matter experts and technical teams to ensure you create an easy-to-understand training program, catering to the needs of your employees.

Benefits: 

• Improves technical acumen
• Minimizes wastage and unnecessary usage of tools
• Provides hands-on experience with the latest technologies

7. c. Product-Based Training

Product training is the most important aspect of an employee development program, as it helps the new hires understand everything they need to know about the organization. Employees can only perform better when they have a clear understanding of the product. So, focus on the technical aspects of your product– initiate training sessions with the product developers to understand the product and provide a seamless training experience to your employees.

Benefits: 

• Aligns the business goals through better product knowledge
• Improves customer experience 
• Creates room for product improvement 

8. d. Employee Upskilling Training

Employee upskilling refers to the process of providing training and learning opportunities to existing employees to help them acquire new skills or enhance existing ones. This employee training helps your employees stay relevant in their roles and prepares them for new responsibilities or advancements within the organization.

This continuous learning process creates a positive workforce that is well-prepared to lead your industry. Employee upskilling training is essential because it directly addresses the skills gap and addresses the business challenges, thus improving employee engagement and knowledge retention.

Benefits:

• Helps address the skills gaps
• Improves employee engagement and retention

9. e. Employee Reskilling Training

Employee reskilling refers to the process of training an existing employee to take up a new role in your organization. This training is often used in organizations when the current role becomes obsolete or irrelevant due to technical advancements or skills gaps. 

So a meticulously planned reskilling program would help your employees gain new skills, prepare for new challenges and responsibilities, and work more effectively.

Benefits: 

• Promotes a holistic learning environment
• Retains talented and dedicated employees
• Cost-effective approach to avoid new hires

10. f. Quality Assurance Training

Quality assurance training helps your new hires understand the tools and procedures used to ensure that the products or services meet the company standards before they reach the customers.

This training gives your employees the proper understanding of how to proceed with the testing and ensures that the product or service quality is up to the mark. A proper quality assurance training program not only establishes trust and integrity with customers, but also reduces wastage, improves profit margin, and strengthens customer loyalty and relationships.

Benefits: 

• Ensures that product and service quality standards are met
• Maintains compliance and ensures that your team is prepared for the change
• Reduces additional costs and waste

11. a. Team Training

Team training motivates each new employee in your workplace and ensures that each individual has the same professional growth and development in the organization. By mindfully utilizing your team’s inputs, you can determine the training objectives and help your members enhance their skills more effectively.

Introducing team-building sessions and establishing a clear set of expectations allows your team to adapt to it and collaborate to work toward a common goal.

Benefits: 

• Promotes team and individual productivity
• Enhances collaboration and team cohesion
• Reduces the risk of miscommunication and misunderstandings

12. b. Cross-Team Training

Cross-team training involves teaching employees from different departments or teams the skills and knowledge needed to work collaboratively across organizational boundaries. This helps improve communication, coordination, and overall effectiveness in achieving common goals across the organization. It generally revolves around enhancing skills and resolving conflicts to work unitedly.

Benefits: 

• Boosts team performance
• Facilitates synergetic work
• Promotes a shared sense of purpose and responsibilities
• Boosts knowledge-sharing among the team members

13. c. Sales Training

As the name suggests, sales training aims to improve the skills of employees, sales techniques, and approach toward selling the product and services in the market. Effective sales training programs include topics such as product knowledge and benefits, sales software insights, successful sales methodologies, negotiation techniques, and effective customer relationship management.

Benefits: 

• Helps sales team achieve target more effectively
• Boosts customer relationships and engagement
• Enhances sales techniques, boosting team loyalty and trust

14. d. Leadership Training

Training your existing leaders in the organization is one of the best strategies to reset their mindset and stay up-to-date with the latest market trends. Another way to lead this training program is by training your employees to better understand their current roles and learn what it takes to become leaders.

As a corporate trainer, you can proceed with leadership training by focusing on both hard and soft skills, depending on the industry's needs. Proper leadership training sets the company standards straight and prepares future leaders to showcase leadership qualities and take on bigger responsibilities at the early stages of their careers.

Benefits:

• Mentorship and coaching prepare future leaders
• Enhances the abilities of current leaders to perform better

15. e. Diversity Training

DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) training helps your employees gain more awareness of diversity-focused issues within the workplace. Conducting DEI and sensitivity training in the workplace reduces biased behavior, prejudice, and workplace discrimination. It encourages your employees to acknowledge unconscious bias and embrace people coming from different backgrounds.

Benefits:

• Fosters an inclusive work culture
• Promotes open thinking through shared space for diversified ideas
• Attracts and retains top talent from diverse backgrounds

Accelerate Your Employee Development Program With Calibr

As one of the leading eLearning platforms, we, at Calibr.ai, specialize in enhancing corporate training programs and accelerating employee upskilling and onboarding processes. Our tailored solutions ensure that your new hires quickly grasp their roles, company culture, and responsibilities, setting them up for success from day one. 

With the help of Calibr Craft, you can now develop comprehensive training modules that not only educate employees but also foster teamwork and adaptability, crucial for navigating today's dynamic business environment. 

But wait, that’s not it!

We also provide access to over 22K+ Udemy courses and 6500+ Packt eBooks and video courses, making it easier for your organization to seamlessly onboard and upskill your employees. Contact our experts to learn more about our LMS platform today!

FAQs

1. How can employee development programs improve company performance? 

By investing in employee development, companies can boost performance through better-trained staff, improved efficiency, and increased employee engagement. This ultimately leads to higher profitability, as skilled employees contribute more effectively to organizational success.

2. What are the benefits of employee development programs? 

Employee development programs offer numerous benefits, including increased productivity, higher employee satisfaction, reduced turnover rates, and enhanced skill sets that align with organizational goals. These programs also foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation within the company.

3. What types of training programs are included in employee development? 

Employee development encompasses various types of training programs, such as orientation training, technical training, leadership training, compliance training, and skills development programs. Each type aims to enhance specific skills crucial for employee growth and organizational effectiveness.

4. How can employee development programs help with employee retention? 

Effective employee development programs demonstrate a company’s commitment to its employees’ growth and career advancement. By providing opportunities for learning and skill enhancement, organizations can increase employee satisfaction, reduce turnover, and retain top talent in competitive markets.

5. What role does technology play in modern employee development programs? 

Technology enables modern employee development programs to deliver scalable, personalized, and accessible training solutions. Learning Management Systems (LMS), online courses, and virtual training platforms facilitate continuous learning, remote accessibility, and real-time tracking of employee progress and engagement.