How to create a training program that doesn’t overload your L&D team in 8 steps

How do you measure the effectiveness of your training program?

A. By tracking completion rates.

B. By analyzing productivity and performance data.

If you picked A, you’re not alone—many L&D professionals do. But there’s a more powerful way to measure impact. Keep reading to learn how. 

If you picked B, great! Let’s explore how to take your insights even further. 

What makes a training program truly effective? 

An effective training program does more than tick compliance boxes. And it definitely requires more from learners than flipping through PowerPoint slides.  

Effective training:   

• aligns with your organization’s business goals 

• integrates into employees’ daily workflows 

• builds skills 

To achieve this, L&D needs to move beyond its traditional role and become a strategic partner at the core of the organization. Every company should at minimum cover compliance, onboarding, and role-based skills training.

This 8-step guide is built on insights from working with hundreds of our customers—from small businesses to global enterprises. (So you can be confident it will deliver results.)  

Key traits of an effective training program  

1. Aligns with business strategy

Training programs should actively drive organizational goals. This means embedding L&D into the business to ensure your training meets immediate needs and long-term objectives. 

Here’s how you can do this: 

• Support operational priorities: Design training that reflects strategic plans and operational needs. 

• Collaborate with leaders: Work with stakeholders to link training efforts to KPIs. 

• Target business challenges: Create training that helps employees improve customer satisfaction, reduce turnover, or drive growth in some other way. 

2. Encourages bottom-up learning

The best way to train your workforce is to enable employees to learn from each other. Let employees take charge of their own development.  

By adopting this bottom-up approach, learning becomes a natural part of everyday work. 

Here’s how you can make it happen: 

• Enable employees to share knowledge: Give employees a simple authoring tool that lets them create (and share) e-learning or microlearning. 

• Encourage informal learning: Initiate projects like mentoring and job shadowing to support peer-to-peer learning.  

• Trust your teams: Minimize mandatory training. Your employees are entirely capable of identifying their learning needs! 

3. L&D shifts from content creator to coach

In traditional corporate training, L&D teams create and deliver training content.  

In the past years, many L&D teams in leading organizations have shifted that approach. L&D now enables SMEs to share their knowledge, while providing guidance and support. 

Here’s how you can embrace this shift: 

• Adopt Employee-generated Learning (EGL): SMEs understand their colleagues’ needs best. Enable them to create targeted, practical training content. 

• Adopt a coaching mindset: Guide SMEs on how to design, structure, and present their knowledge effectively. 

• Promote a knowledge-sharing culture: Encourage and reward employees for sharing their expertise with others. 

8 steps to create a training program for employees   

1. Conduct a training needs analysis

Step one is understanding the knowledge and skill gaps within your organization.  

Make sure your program focuses on areas that will create the biggest impact by conducting a thorough training needs analysis. 

Here’s how you can do it: 

• Collaborate with leadership: Work closely with leaders to pinpoint strategic goals that training can support. These might include improving customer service scores, reducing workplace errors, or preparing teams for expansion into new markets. 

• Involve employees: Gather employee input through surveys, focus groups, or chats. Ask them about their challenges, what they wish they knew, and where they feel their performance could improve. 

• Analyze data: Use performance metrics, customer feedback, and error rates to identify patterns or areas that could benefit from training. 

2. Set specific, measurable goals

After identifying the gaps, the next step is to turn them into actionable goals for your training program.

A practical way to do this is by using the SMART framework, setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This approach ensures your training objectives are concrete and directly tied to business outcomes.

Examples of training goals: 

• “Ensure all employees complete safety training to meet compliance standards.” 

• “Boost the sales team’s closing rate by 15% through improved product knowledge and soft skills.” 

• “Train managers to increase employee retention by conducting more effective one-on-one meetings.” 

3. Identify the right contributors

The best way to build a training plan that addresses your company’s unique needs is to involve your SMEs. They bring crucial expertise and can create content that is relevant and actionable.  

This way, your training will resonate with learners much more and deliver real business impact in the long run. 

Here’s how to find and engage the right contributors: 

• Tap into SMEs: Identify employees with deep expertise in specific tools, processes, or industries. These are the go-to people their peers rely on. 

• Encourage cross-departmental collaboration: Involve employees from different teams to bring diverse perspectives and break down silos. 

• Engage managers and leaders: They can pinpoint skill gaps, offer support, and ensure training aligns with business goals. 

4. Choose the right delivery methods

Your training delivery methods should align with the diversity of your workforce and the complexity of your content.  

If you’re exploring how to create a training program from scratch, consider a blended learning approach and combine different training techniques. 

Consider combining these methods: 

• Employee-generated content: Encourage SMEs to create e-learning courses, tutorial videos, or microlearning modules. Content developed by peers is more relatable, trusted, and easier to remember by learners. (That’s why we designed Easygenerator’s authoring tool so it can be used by people with no e-learning experience. So that SMEs can easily share knowledge.) 

• L&D-led training: Use instructor-led workshops, webinars, or external certifications for foundational topics like compliance or leadership development. 

• On-the-job learning: Facilitate job shadowing, mentoring, or peer coaching to embed learning into everyday work. 

• Self-paced e-learning: Offer easy access to content through an LMS so employees can learn at their own speed and revisit materials when needed. 

5. Empower employees to share their knowledge

EGL can transform your training program. It taps into the expertise within your organization and builds a culture of knowledge sharing.  

Here’s how you can encourage EGL: 

• Provide user-friendly tools: Choose a user-friendly e-learning authoring tool that makes it simple for SMEs to create and share content. 

• Offer guidance and support: Help SMEs design effective materials by providing e-learning templates, course checklists, and coaching.  
• Provide governance guidelines: Having a strong governance over your company’s EGL content ensures that SMEs create relevant training resources.  

• Recognize contributors: Celebrate employees who create valuable content through awards, public recognition, or professional development opportunities. 

6. Pilot the program and gather feedback

If you’re thinking about how to create a corporate training program, test your approach with a small group first. This pilot phase is crucial. It helps you identify strengths, address gaps, and ensure everything runs smoothly before the launch. 

During the pilot, focus on: 

• Usability: Can employees easily access and navigate the content? 

• Relevance: Does the training address the challenges and goals identified during the needs analysis? 

• Feedback: Use surveys or focus groups to learn what participants found valuable and what needs improvement. 

7. Keep your training program evolving

Building a training program is just the first step—maintaining it is just as important. Especially when you have SMEs creating content.  

Establish processes that ensure materials stay current, relevant, and effective. 

Here’s how you can ensure training content is up to date: 

• Schedule routine updates: Set regular review cycles for training materials to ensure they align with the latest processes, tools, and company objectives. 

• Equip your SMEs: Provide SMEs with clear guidelines for updating their content and encourage them to proactively refresh materials as needed. 

• Use feedback loops: Have course authors include their name and contact information on their e-learning courses. This way, learners who pinpoint outdated information or gaps can contact the author directly.  

8. Track progress and measure success

Monitoring your training program’s success keeps it aligned with your goals and helps you improve it over time. 

Here’s how you can track and measure impact: 

• Pre- and post-training assessments: Use quizzes or role-playing activities to measure skill improvements before and after training.

• Behavioral changes: See whether employees are applying new skills on the job through performance reviews or manager feedback.  

• Business metrics: Tie training outcomes to KPIs like productivity, quality, revenue, or customer satisfaction.  

• Gather regular feedback: Use surveys or focus groups to find out what your learners valued and what could be improved. 

• Refine and update: Schedule regular reviews of training materials to ensure they align with evolving business needs and processes. 

Conclusion  

Learning how to create a training program that delivers tangible results doesn’t have to be overwhelming.  

By following these eight steps and using an EGL apporach, you can: 

• empower employees to share their expertise 

• keep training content relevant 

• align learning with your organization’s business goals 

This approach allows your L&D team to take on a more strategic role—focusing on business impact rather than content creation.