Team training: definition, benefits, and best practices

Every team will come across a period when their skills can’t meet their current tasks. This may be due to workplace changes, new business demands, or innovations in the industry. Without intervention, your team’s output will decrease in quality, quantity, and relevance.

This issue can be easily solved through team training. The addition of new skills, knowledge, and mindsets to your team’s abilities is an exponential investment. Start creating impactful training programs by reading this guide, which covers everything you need to know about team training.

What is team training?

In Learning, Remembering, Believing: Enhancing Human Performance, the National Research Council defines team training as the process of teams improving their teamwork and taskwork through gaining new skills, know-how, and values. These learnings are all practical and useful for enhancing the team’s abilities to tackle their current tasks in the company. The main goal of team training is to boost the overall performance of your employees as a core team.

What are the benefits of team training?

The main highlight of team training is that your employees improve as individuals and as team players. Beyond improving teamwork, here are other unique benefits that team development training can offer to your team and your company:

• Boosts performance and productivity

A review of the effect of teamwork inventions on teamwork and team performance revealed that team training had a great impact in both areas. This was true for various industries like aviation, healthcare, and industry. It also performed well for new and old teams.

The study also showed that by targeting multiple areas of development through engaging training activities, your team will learn how to work better together. This will increase your team’s overall performance and output because they’ll combine their skills and knowledge.

• Develops future leaders

As your team members master their skills and develop their mindsets, some may show potential for leadership. They’ll be able to help their fellow team members, take accountability for their actions, and take initiative on tasks and projects. Not only will this increase your team’s abilities, but it’ll also raise team morale.

This will also be valuable in the future when you need to pick the next set of managers. When you need to make space for new team members or replace existing managers, your employees will already be familiar with what it takes to foster a cohesive team.

• Creates a culture of learning and development

Once your team has incorporated staff training into their routines, they’ll embrace the habit of learning new things on their own. With the right training medium, they’ll learn to practice curiosity and critical thinking in the workplace. This will help them keep learning even after the training program has ended. 

Your employees will also find it easier to adapt to industry changes, new technologies, and workplace changes. This is because with enough training, updating and reassessing their skills and capabilities will become second nature to them.

7 Types of team training

To get these awesome benefits, you need to pick the right team training to include in your operations. There are many different types of team training that target certain skills or topics. Here are 7 types of team training to consider:

1. Onboarding training

Onboarding training is the first type of training your employees will come across. Upgrading your onboarding for team training can help new members feel more welcome, comfortable, and ready in their workplace. This also helps increase your team’s productivity, as the new talent will be equipped to handle the usual workplace challenges.

2. Compliance training

Compliance is required for every workplace so all employees can follow the company’s rules and regulations. This can be redesigned for team training to help your employees apply compliance together. The specific lessons for your compliance team training will depend on your company and industry. It's a good starting point for a training program focused on group development.

3. Soft skills training

Soft skills team training is fantastic for fostering collaborative and positive relationships within your team. These work skills involve how you interact with others, like communication, listening, and writing skills. It's the foundation for good and effective teamwork for your team.

4. Technical skills training

Technical skills, or hard skills, are what your team needs to do or practice for their tasks. These are specific to your company and industry. Some examples include customer service, software development, or project management. Incorporating technical skills into your team training not only adds new skills to your team but also teaches them to combine their strengths and expertise.

5. Cross-training

If your company has different teams, they may benefit from cross-training. This type of training has your employees trying out the other roles your organization has. This can help them learn skills they wouldn’t know from their current role, develop a wider perspective of their impact at work, and create relationships with coworkers outside of their team.

6. Time management training 

This type of training focuses on improving your team’s productivity. Time management team training can help your employees stay composed while they handle multiple tasks, projects, and assignments. They’ll also learn to count on each other when they don’t have enough time or energy for a certain task. It’s a central skill to your team’s work process.

7. Leadership training

Leadership team training and other team management training are essential for the overall development of your group. It teaches your team members how to be responsible, accountable, and ambitious at work. Leadership may seem like an individual skill, but it helps your team drive innovations in the workplace and appreciate the importance of collaborating with one another.

How to train a team effectively

Now that you’ve learned what team training is and what it can do for your team, it’s time to put it into practice. A good team training program can give your employees the skills they need. But a training program that follows these tips can help your team become lifelong learners.

1. Conduct a training needs analysis

Before you conduct your training program, assess if it's meeting your team’s needs. This is done through a training needs analysis before you design your program. Your HR department can do this to identify skills gaps and other learning needs in your employees. A thorough training needs assessment can give you the specific skills and knowledge your team needs to develop.

2. Set SMART training goals

After recognizing what your team needs to learn, you should create SMART goals. It stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals that your team can work toward. This is to check how the new skills and knowledge can properly fit into your employees’ workflow. Here are some examples of these kinds of goals:

• Reduce late output by 15%.
• Learn the newest safety regulations by next month.
• Create opportunities for online work.
  

3. Focus on teamwork

Your team training program must emphasize learning and practicing as a group. It should focus on cultivating teamwork and other group skills. When your team learns individual skills, you should also teach them ways they can use those skills together. For example, your training program can teach your team how to rely on each other and ask for help.

4. Make your training fun

Turning your team training ideas into enjoyable group activities can create memorable learning experiences. This is done by choosing fun training topics, adding engaging activities and games, and preparing prizes for your team. If your team training program has these interactive elements, your team will learn more while having fun.

5. Use a learning management system

A learning management system (LMS) is a powerful tool that can elevate your training. It can create and deliver courses, track progress and certifications, and report on your learners’ progress. It can drive your entire training program, from designing it to implementing it. Team training can be done more easily and consistently through an LMS implementation.

Empower your teams through SC Training

If you need an LMS that meets all your training needs, you should try SC Training (formerly EdApp). It has a Creator Tool that can help you create lessons in just a few minutes with an easy-to-use design interface and a Create with AI feature. 

You can also get started with the 1,000+ bite-sized courses available in their Course Library. They have various editable lessons on communication, productivity, leadership, and other essential workplace skills. These courses are short and take only 5 to 10 minutes for each lesson, making it very easy to fit into your team’s schedule. They’re also created with gamified templates to make learning fun and engaging.

Learning can also be collaborative with SC Training’s Discussions and Assignments features. Turn your lessons into a forum-like open discussion where your team can respond to your lessons with text, videos, and photos. You can personally check up on your team’s progress and get feedback on your courses. Even when it’s online, your team learn and gain insight through communicating with one another.

Evolve your employee’s performance through team training. Sign up for SC Training today!