One thing all managers and warehouse supervisors have in common is that they all want to increase their warehouse efficiency and cut costs. The best way to improve your warehouse efficiency is by boosting organization. By having a proper training program in place for your warehouse, you improve organization, which helps with efficiency and also cuts costs. Below are 5 steps you can use to create an effective warehouse training program for your employees.
Step 1: Training Needs Assessment
Before you can begin to create a training program, you need to firstly identify which skills the program needs to focus on improving. To do this, you can conduct a gap analysis where you determine goals for each skill set, and use that framework to evaluate employees. This will help you determine where employees are excelling and where they need to improve.
Step 2: Determine Training Methods
It is important to note that each training need requires different methods and approaches. For example, if you were training forklift or truck operators, the training wouldn’t be effective unless they were trained in the actual machine. Additionally, you also have to decide if you want to train employees using people from your own company or if you would like to hire an external company to conduct the training process. Lastly you want to decide what medium your training will be carried out in. For example, will training be only in class, only online, or both? Evaluating your business operations and training needs properly will help you decide which methods will serve best for your company.
Step 3: Run Pilot Programs
In this step, you will introduce your training program to a group of diverse employees from different departments in order to receive their feedback on the course. With this feedback, you can refine and adjust the training program before you present to all the other employees and implement it fully.
Step 4: Scheduling and Implementation
Now that you’ve tested out your training program, you are ready to implement it into your business. You’ll need to schedule the courses in a way that will benefit all employees without leaving you short-staffed. It is also important to remember that keeping communication lines open is crucial. Taking employee suggestions will be beneficial throughout this whole process.
Step 5: Evaluate Employee Learning
After completing your warehouse training program, you’ll want to make sure that it is benefiting your employees. Measuring training effectiveness is very important in determining what worked and what can be changed. One way to do this is to have employees create an action plan to complete after the training program. If many employees struggle with these goals, it may be worth reviewing your program and making adjustments for the future.
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REFERENCES
“5 Steps To A Successful Warehouse And Logistics Training Process” | Logistics Bureau. Logisticsbureau.com. N. p., 2017. Web. 17 Aug. 2017.