As the demand for new skills gains traction in today’s workplace, upskilling and cross-skilling are key for any employee to stay relevant in the industry. The World Economic Forum projects that automation is likely to displace 85 million jobs by 2025 and the robot revolution is expected to create 97 million new jobs. The same report also found that the most competitive businesses are likely to be those that choose to reskill and upskill current employees.
This is where continuous professional development (CPD) is essential for employees to remain in their roles even for the next five years. In fact, more than half of employers (66%) expect to see a return on investment in upskilling and reskilling of current employees within one year.
CPD, by definition, is the ongoing process of developing, maintaining and documenting one’s professional skills. These skills may be gained formally by undergoing courses of training, or informally, through on-the-job exposure or by shadowing others. The key objective of a CPD programme, regardless of the industry, is to help employees stay up to date with ever-changing industry needs and to remain competent in the evolving environment. An effective way to help employees of any professional or organization to keep track of their CPD progress is by leveraging a training tracking system.
What is a training tracking system?
A training tracking system is essentially a software that helps employees and organizations track and summarize employee training records, regardless of work location or method. Most training tracking systems allow managers to create and record all training events completed by individual employees as well as monitor the progress of any ongoing training. Some training tracking software also includes features that allow the organization to manage online registrations, payments and invoicing for CPD courses and events.
Here are some benefits of leveraging a training tracking system to track employees’ CPD progress.
Organized and easy access to training records
A training tracking system helps to automate manual tracking and storage of individual employee training records. This allows managers and HR to track the training events that an employee has completed or are due to undergo. Almost all training tracking software also allows managers to export out their employee’s or team’s training records, providing an overview of employee’ training progress towards their learning goals. This may include detailed records such as number of hours attended, type of training, training provider, and training expiration or renewal date (if applicable). Most training tracking software also include reminder features that prompt the employee or manager to attend a particular training or if there is an overdue training yet to be completed by the employee.
Enables personalized training and learning programmes for employees
The upside to a training tracking system is that it creates a personalized learning experience for employees. Employees can enter their learning goals and leverage the tracking software to input the training they have attended, number of hours and monitor their progress against their learning goals. This also helps them to create a learning plan tailored to their specific needs, be it developing soft skills or exploring new domains outside their primary job area. A training tracking system also ensures that they remain compliant with local regulatory requirements. For example, Chartered Accountants (CA) in Singapore are required to clock in at least 120 continuing professional education hours over a 3-year period. A training tracking software allows employees to set training expiring dates so that they can be notified when a training needs to be booked or if they are falling behind on their expected learning progress.
Increase engagement and motivation levels
A training tracking system allows employees to be accountable for their own learning goals and progress. When employees are able to personalize their own learning journey, they are likely to take their professional development seriously. It enables employees to learn at his or her own pace, and encourages them to actively contribute to their learning development. This personalized learning also brings meaning to the individual employee and increases relevance to them, in turn increasing motivation and engagement levels.
Encourages career advancement
Leveraging a training tracking system also helps to encourage career advancement among employees. By tracking their own learning progress against their goals, employees can clearly identify learning and training gaps. Employees can also be motivated to plug this knowledge or training gap through notifications that alert them to what they need to do and when they need to do it. By providing employees with this easy access to their own learning progress, it supports performance and further learning needs.
In today’s rapidly evolving workplace, upskilling and reskilling is key to stay relevant. This places greater emphasis on individual employees to pursue their own learning paths. Organizations can empower employees to take charge of their own learning goals by capitalizing on a training tracking system to create a personalized training experience. Concurrently, it also allows organizations to track the return of investment in CPD. Ultimately, learning functions more effectively when the whole organization values learning and embraces a culture of knowledge sharing – all supported by an effective and efficient training tracking system.