Here’s the kind of training millennials need to get ahead in 2017

• 2-minute read •
If you want to land a sweet promotion this year, add these skills to your toolbox.
Training: It’s one of the least sexy words in the dictionary, but for career-oriented people, it’s also one of the most important.
While much has been made of the soft skills employers are looking for in entry-level workers, if you’re looking for a raise or promotion this year, you’ll definitely want to show your boss that you’re adding hard, marketable skills to your repertoire.
Luckily, most (good) managers will want you to get training, because it means you’re interested in being better at your job and helping the company grow.

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7 tips to make trainings work

Regular trainings are important for continuous employee development and improved productivity. More so, in these troubled times of recession. What can you do to make your trainings work for the organisation?

With recession impacting almost all the organisations, there is a focus on improving the effectiveness of the employees resulting in lower costs and higher productivity. When it comes to improving performance, nothing works like proper training. However, we have all known cases where trainings have failed to make the impact that they were expected to make. For a training to work, it is necessary to plan it properly and implement it well. Here are some tips that will help you plan and implement trainings in your organization in a better manner.

Assess needs carefully: Plan your trainings based on a careful needs analysis. Try to assess the kind of skills that the organisation will need for successful completion of its projects and see where the employees stand in terms of skills. Then, understand what kind of trainings the employees think will be required to take them to the required level.

Clearly define objectives: After analysing the needs carefully, design the objectives of the training. The objectives should try to take into consideration all the points derived from the needs analysis. They should define the starting point and the end objective of the training and everything in between. This helps in ensuring that the training in targeted and never loses focus.

Create context and set expectations: Inform the employees in advance about the training and why the company thinks it is important for them. Tell them the expected outcome of the trainings and what kind of performance improvement would be expected out of them after the training. Ensure that you let the employees know that the training is their own responsibility and the knowledge addition will help them in their career growth.

Provide pre-training material and be ready with post-training material: The pre-training material can act as a refresher on the current skills for the employees. It can also be used to transfer new knowledge so that the trainees know what to expect and be prepared with their queries and doubts. Moreover, you can also use pre-training questionnaires to gauge the current situation and plan the training accordingly. Also, create post-training reading material so that the trainees can refer to them, when required.

Assess the trainees and give feedback: Assess the trainees to know how effective the training has been. The assessment method could range from play-acting, multiple choice answers to case studies. Based on the assessment, give feedback to the trainees about improvement and focus areas. The assessment results would provide useful insights towards what was good and what needs improvement.

Take feedback: Take feedback from the attendees about the positives and negatives of the training. This will help you understand what went well and what did not, and based on the feedback, you can look at making the next training better.

Assess real life training effectiveness: Enable and entrust the supervisors the responsibility to check the difference the training has made on the employee performance. Check if the training has brought about any changes in the work behaviour and productivity. This will help you understand the effectiveness of the trainings in real life and make improvements, if required.

Improved productivity and work quality is the key to handling the current situation. Ensure that the employees are properly trained to handle crisis and come out of it smiling through improved skill sets and higher quality of work.
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How to Leverage Your Training as a Nurse into a New Career

When it comes to marketing your skills for a career change, your nursing background may be more valuable than you might realize.

Kate Christmas says nursing has opened all sorts of doors for her, since she became a registered nurse in 1976. Christmas was attracted to trauma nursing and worked for five years as a flight nurse. She wanted a change and went into a managerial position as a nightshift supervisor at a hospital. When family obligations made it necessary for her to get a daytime job, she became a nurse at a surgery center. A few years later, an advertisement for a job as a nurse recruiter at a hospital caught her fancy, so she applied.

“Healthcare recruitment was something I had never thought of or even knew was a possibility when I went into nursing as a career,” Christmas says.

Still, she got the job because she knew what it was like to work for a hospital, understood nursing roles and had good communication skills. Today, Christmas is vice president of the Health Care Division at Bernard Hodes Group. She consults with hospital and health system human resources departments about how to improve recruiting and retention strategies.

“The things that nurses always have to think about are the two magic words: transferable skills,” Christmas says. “Our training is so wonderful and practical in every aspect of life. You don’t want to wait until you’re burned out [to change jobs or careers because when you are you lose enthusiasm. What you want to always keep alive is your enthusiasm. If you’re an enthusiastic person, and you present yourself in a positive way, I would say the sky is the limit to what you can do.”

Jacqueline Haas, RN, BSN, agrees. Haas used her background as a cardiac and critical care nurse to catapult her from bedside care into the sales arena. She got her first job in sales with a company that sold disposable medical supplies. Haas says her skills made her the valuable choice for the job. After all, she was experienced with using disposable supplies, could multitask and manage time well, and was skilled at dealing with different types of people—from patients and their families to physicians and other healthcare providers.

Now, as manager of clinical sales at Ibex Health Data Systems, a software company, Haas says that the combination of sales and clinical experience helped her land her latest post. “My message to fellow nurses is to get the clinical experience and the avenues will open up. Nursing opens up a tremendous amount of opportunities, and you can decide what path you want to go down.”

There are many reasons nurses might be ready for change,: A Guide for Discovering Your Ultimate Profession. “…you graduated from a program and now you are ready for something bigger; you feel like you have learned all you can in your present position and you want to learn something new; you have always wanted to go into a certain area and now the opportunity has arisen; you saw a job advertised online and you new it would be perfect for you…,”.

We suggest that if you’re feeling the itch to make a change, search for your own inner clarity and direction. Find out what your options are before you are completely ready to leave your current job. Talk to people in those roles and do some soul searching to determine which careers seem to capitalize on what you like to do. Identify companies that you’d want to work for, research their needs and network.

Nursing is one of today’s most versatile careers, that serves biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science. “I think it’s because the people who are successful in nursing have a caring attitude, so they truly want to be helpful and assist people, making them ideal from a customer service standpoint.”

The professional world has many opportunities. You might want a change within the profession. If you’re a staff nurse, that could mean getting additional training to specialize in an area of medicine or go into advanced practice. Alternatively, you could find clinical research or academia more in line with what you want to do for the foreseeable future. Or, like Haas, the financial potential and challenge of biotech or pharmaceutical sales might be the answer.

Staff nurses often seek advancement to management level positions. These leadership roles, he says, require clinical as well as leadership skills. If you’re thinking about moving into management, gain leadership experience where you can (in volunteer or professional positions) and consider taking a leadership course.

Fowler also notes that nurses are often attracted to medical and pharma sales. “I have a colleague who just had an opportunity for a nurse at a medical device company,” he says.

While pharmaceutical sales tend to be an easy transition for many nurses, Fowler says that nurses are often caring and compassionate and sales is more a tough, cutthroat environment. You can use your strengths to overcome your lack of sales experience by emphasizing your ability to work with physicians (or the buyers of medications) and speak intelligently about medical products and medications.

“We find that nurses’ skills come in handy in just about every job type, Sometimes it just takes a little tweaking to meet your career objectives.”