How Employee Monitoring Can Improve Training Effectiveness

Contrary to external threats, such as hackers breaking in from the outside, internal threats are posed by individuals inside your organization. They can be your employees, managers, partners, or contractors - anyone with legitimate access to the confidential data, systems, and premises and uses this access in ways that harm your business.

Understanding what skills or knowledge your employees lack is the first step toward effective training. Usually, companies rely on broad assumptions and general feedback and provide one-size-fits-all training, which is not the most efficient approach. Half of your staff could be underqualified for the selected training, while the other would already know everything taught in the course.

Employee surveys and manager observations, traditionally used for identifying training needs, often present a subjective perspective. They may not show the whole picture or reveal the most critical areas for improvement.

On the contrary, employee monitoring software is your in-depth diagnostic tool. It provides insights into what skills precisely each employee lacks, and allows you to offer them targeted training.

After identifying the skill and knowledge gaps through employee monitoring, you can move on to the next step - planning the training program that delivers the maximum impact.

Instead of creating broad, generalized courses, you can now focus on specific areas where employees struggle the most. For example, if monitoring reveals a consistent struggle with data analysis across your marketing team, your training program can dedicate a significant portion to practical exercises and real-world scenarios focused on data interpretation and reporting.

Moreover, you can go deeper and create personalized training paths. Different employees will have different levels of proficiency and varying learning needs. Monitoring can help identify these individual nuances. Such an approach will be also beneficial for new hires. Monitoring their initial performance and revealing areas where they need support can help create individual onboarding programs and supplementary training modules. This personalized approach ensures that each employee receives the specific training they need, at their own pace, maximizing their learning potential and accelerating their integration into their roles.

The value of the training program does not lie in the number of top experts who participated in its creation. It is in its impact on employee performance and, consequently, the organization's success. Employee monitoring is an effective tool to measure this impact objectively.

One of the most direct ways to evaluate training effectiveness is to compare performance metrics before and after the course. The 'before' metrics set an objective baseline of the current performance, and the 'after' metrics are the actual progress made. For example, you can measure the training results on new sales techniques by comparing the average deal closing rate or generated revenue before the course and in the subsequent months. A statistically significant improvement in these KPIs directly indicates training effectiveness.

Even if employee monitoring confirms that the training was effective, there is always room for improvement. Ongoing employee monitoring after training can reveal if performance has not improved in certain areas or if employees are still struggling with specific skills or processes. For example, post-training data shows a significant improvement in most areas but a persistent issue with a particular software feature. It suggests that the training on that specific feature might need to be enhanced with more practical exercises or clearer explanations.

Analysis of areas where employees struggle even after training will pinpoint parts of the curriculum that need to be revisited, updated, or supplemented with additional resources. This way, you can ensure your training remains relevant and effective over time.

Organizations want to ensure that their learning and development initiatives are truly effective and contribute directly to achieving strategic goals. Employee monitoring is one of the most practical ways to evaluate and improve training effectiveness. It is a powerful lens that highlights skill gaps, allowing the creation of targeted training programs, helps measure the impact of your initiatives, and empowers you to make corrections.

Using the data-driven approach powered by employee monitoring, you move beyond guesswork and intuition. You can make informed decisions that lead to more impactful and ultimately more successful training results.

However, for employee monitoring to reach its maximum efficiency, you should implement it ethically and transparently. If you are interested in how to do it, you can learn more in our article dedicated to employee monitoring ethics.