Training Management System - Every Organization Needs One

Organizations spend significant amount of money on training and development of their employees. Training is done in different areas, for different employees, in different ways at different times. In order to appreciate the benefits of the effort and investment in training, it is imperative that the training is managed in a systematic manner and not treated as a sporadic set of activities or events.

A good training management system can address the different factors needed to make training effective.

Development is continuous process

Development of employees is not just a one time event. It is a continuous process with many activities carried over a period of time. This in turn means that proper tracking of the same should be done. Organization would need to know the development activities that an employee participated in. This is one key element of a good training management system. It helps track the various activities that an employee goes through during a period of time. At the end of say a year, we are able to look at the various trainings that an employee has gone through, judge whether they have indeed made an impact on the employee's performance at work.

Training involves varied events

Training methodologies have evolved over the years due to improvement in the knowledge in the behavioral sciences including adult learning and proliferation of internet technologies. Training is no more just a classroom activity. There are many methodologies which are adopted for imparting knowledge and skills including instructor classroom training, instructor led training over the web, self paced individual learning, and so on. Organizations would very much want to track all such learning activities to make a proper analysis of which of them is working best. A training management system enables organizations to track several training activities which may be happening across the organization.

Operational and strategic inputs

A good training management system can make the operational part of the training and development function very effective. It also provides strategic inputs for decision making on human capital enhancement for the organization. Administrative activities can be automated, collaboration can be enabled, data generation can be democratized, project or event management can become more systematic and inclusive - all of these making the execution of training management easier, efficient and productive. From a strategic perspective, a training management system will be able to provide vital information on cost break down from different view points (such as department, location, business unit and so on), feedback on the effectiveness of the training programs, quality of the training vendors, participation levels and so on.

Any organization which is serious about developing the knowledge and skills of its employees and invests in training their employees to enhance the human capital of the organization should be seriously considering deploying a good training management system for their organization.