A step-by-step guide to create training materials

The creation of effective employee training materials are an integral part of the role of the learning and development (L&D) department in many organizations.

After all, filling the skills gaps within a company using in-house training materials or an AI course creator can boost employee performance, increase employee engagement, and improve rates of retention.

It can also offer L&D teams the opportunity to train employees in the specifics of their company’s processes and culture. Getting training materials right, however, is not always a simple task.

It involves knowing the needs of employees, understanding the learning process and objectives of the organization, and having the ability to fully utilize the latest tools, technology, and strategies to present information in a way that is clear, compelling, and memorable.

In this guide, we discuss the steps to take to create training materials that produce the best learning outcomes for your employees and your organization. In addition, we’ll be looking at the importance of effective training materials, offering advice on what to include in your educational content, how to utilize AI to create your assets, and outlining the best software on the market.

By the end, you’ll have the knowledge you need to craft engaging and effective educational documentation, videos, presentations, and interactive content to effectively train your employees.

Whether you’re onboarding new employees or supporting staff as they learn new skills and processes, well-designed and engaging training materials are the key to ensuring a successful outcome that sees employees excel within their roles and teams.

Training materials, whether they be educational videos, downloadable files, or interactive exercises and quizzes, enable team leads to support their team members as they learn and unlock their full potential.

When training materials focus on learning acquisition, information retention, and learner engagement, employees have the skills and knowledge they need to perform their jobs effectively, leading to increased productivity and improved quality of work. But the benefits don’t end there.

When engaging and personalized employee training programs and materials are prioritized within an organization, the consistency and quality of the work of the whole team increases, while individual and team performance and productivity are bolstered.

This lowers costs as outside experts don’t need to be brought in to perform specific tasks, and the training materials can be used as many times as necessary, reducing the need to pay for external courses.

For individual employees, there are also a number of personal advantages to working with training materials.

Investment in an employee's professional development can promote feelings that they are valued by the company. As a result, they are less likely to look elsewhere to further their careers, thus reducing staff turnover and boosting employee satisfaction.

Your training materials will need to be designed to specifically address the learning needs of the individuals who will be using them. However, there are some standard best practices to consider when it comes to the type of content that will bring about the best learning outcomes for your employees.

Where possible, try to include the following elements in your compliance training materials and educational assets to ensure the best learning experience and outcomes.

Learning objectives serve two key purposes in your training materials. First, they help guide employees as they learn, ensuring they focus their efforts in the right places.

Second, they help team leaders effectively measure the progress of individuals and assess how effective the training materials themselves are at supporting employee learning.

When creating your learning goals, be as specific as you can be about what is expected of the learner and use language that is clear and jargon-free.

You’ll want to ensure that your learners have an overview of the topics and subtopics that they will be studying during the training. For this reason, include a table of contents at the beginning of the training materials.

This will help to manage expectations, indicate how long the training might take, demonstrate the variety of study formats being adopted, outline projects or assessments that will require learner submissions, and provide a clear idea of the learning arc the employees will make.

If there is a final project or exam to be completed, this should also be outlined here to give students time to prepare.

The core component of your training materials will be information about the chosen topic and detailed instructions relating to exercises or activities that will help to cement each learner’s knowledge.

This information might be text-based, image-based, interactive via an app or website, or within a training video. It’s important to spend time crafting materials and assets that employees can get to grips with quickly and easily to perform the necessary tasks or exercises.

Additionally, well-crafted content, irrespective of its format, can be used as a general reference or guide for employees that they can return to again and again.

An effective way of illustrating more complex concepts, procedures, or methodologies is by including real-world examples throughout your training materials.

This helps learners relate to the content more easily and provides them with practical context for their learning which boosts comprehension and knowledge retention. This best practice also bridges the gap between real workplace scenarios and theoretical knowledge and how it is applied.

Visually representing complex concepts or collections of data using graphs, charts, and diagrams can be an effective way to make your training materials more accessible and easier for learners to understand.

This will work particularly well for visual learners, who find it easier to retain information visually rather than solely via text. Diagrams can also be used to illustrate processes and highlight important issues, supporting the overall learning experience and ensuring better outcomes.

It’s important to break up content sections with practice exercises, questions, and activities to give employees the opportunity to put into practice what they have learned, cement their knowledge, and assess their own progress.

An effective way of doing this is to end each topic section with a short quiz or exercise focused on the subject just covered. While this won’t be assessed formally, it will help learners to use what they have learned and see what knowledge gaps still remain.

AI tools can support team leads in the creation of training materials in a number of ways.

AI tools can be used to generate training content in the form of text, videos, images, quizzes, and even interactive simulations.

The L&D team can even use AI to produce customized lessons by inputting data and predefined objectives, resulting in content that truly matches the needs of employees.

When collected data on employee preferences, learning styles, and performance are inputted into an AI tool, AI algorithms can analyze the information and produce tailored training materials that suit the needs of each individual.

This technology can be used to produce adaptive learning paths and personalized feedback, too. When AI is used to craft a personalized learning experience for employees, learning outcomes are significantly improved, employees are more motivated, and, as a result, workplace productivity and efficiency are boosted.

As we have seen, incorporating elements within the training materials that students can interact with such as chatbots, gamification features, quizzes, and virtual assistants all enhance learner engagement and improve learning outcomes.

When selecting software to create training development materials and assets, you’ll need to take into account the needs of your company, the type of content you’re hoping to create, and the L&D team.

Luckily, there are numerous digital tools out there that can support the creation of effective and engaging learning materials.

For organizations looking to create text or image-based presentations as part of their training development materials, tools like Canva and Microsoft Powerpoint remain industry-leaders due to their user-friendly platforms that support the creation of eye-catching presentations.

Whether you’re interested in including interactive simulations, quizzes, videos, or graphic design, both tools cater to multiple aspects of course creation.

Smartcat's AI for Learning Content is a game-changer for L&D teams looking to utilize the latest AI technology and human language skills for content creation, localization, and management of training materials.

Repetitive tasks such as translation and content adaptation are fully automated, enabling L&D teams to spend their time on learning and development strategy and supporting employees. Effective learning management systems provide AI-powered tools to support the creation and translation of learning assets and the localization of all your materials.

Additionally, these tools ensure that content is culturally relevant, familiar, and relatable. This further improves learning engagement and outcomes for employees from different countries and regions.

Finally, Smartcat supports full integration with other e-learning platforms and content management systems, enabling your company to fully optimize its training plan and delivery.

These are the steps you need to take to create effective and engaging training materials for your employees.

The first step in creating effective training materials is to thoroughly assess the educational needs of those you will be training and the demands of the organization as a whole.

With this information, you can develop targeted training materials that address skills deficiencies and performance issues. To do this, you can perform research into the current knowledge level of different teams, analyze employee competencies, and pinpoint areas that can be improved upon.

In addition, you can deepen your understanding of how learners prefer to engage so you can tailor your training materials to match their learning styles and address their needs.

Your next step is to define some goals for the content. This step ensures that the content you create effectively trains employees in the skills needed by the company and leads to the knowledge outcomes required.

Objectives are also a key part of the development process, as they offer a focus and direction for those creating the content, and help ensure only relevant and goal-oriented training materials are produced.

Some examples of objectives include:

• Promote leadership development 

• Enhance decision-making, communication, and team management skills 

• Improve technical proficiency

• Enable employees to use new software systems and boost productivity

• Enhance customer service skills 

• Increase customer satisfaction scores by 20% thanks to improved skills in handling customer inquiries.

Before you start writing your learning materials, you’ll need to create a logical structure that aligns with your goals, the goals of the learner, and the goals of the company.

When designing your training materials, you can structure the content so that each section flows logically from the previous one. This enables users to easily follow the information being given to them and incrementally build on their existing knowledge.

An example of a section structure is:

1. A clear introduction to the topic, outlining objectives for the section and its relevance to the workplace. 

2. A presentation of all key concepts, broken down into headers and subheads. 

3. A summary and actionable takeaways that help to reinforce learning. 

4. A quiz or short test relevant to the subject covered that helps to cement the employee’s learning and highlight anything that has not been understood.

Once your content structure is defined, you’re well-placed to create a detailed outline of the entire course’s materials, ensuring that all key topics are covered.

You’ll need to engage with different media to cater to the different learning styles of your employees.

Combining different elements, such as text, video, and interactive components, is a simple way to make the content more interesting and dynamic as well as easier for learners to remember.

Consider using infographics and charts for summarizing large amounts of data, for example, and videos to demonstrate how to use tools or software.

Using the structure, outline, and media that you’ve selected in the previous step, you can start developing the core content of your training materials.

To ensure accuracy and relevance, you’ll need to begin by researching the topic of your training materials thoroughly. Making notes as you go, collect information from sources such as industry reports, in-house experts, and case studies to provide your material with a solid foundation.

With your employees’ learning styles and competence level in mind, write clear and concise content covering the researched topics, ensuring that the information you are passing on aligns with the objectives outlined at the start of the development process.

Visual aids such as diagrams, photographs, and charts will significantly enhance the learning experience of your employees, increasing accessibility and understanding, and breaking up the page visually.

Place these images strategically throughout the training materials, using them to support text and clarify complex concepts to maximize their impact.

The inclusion of online training videos can be a smart move for organizations looking to engage learners and explain processes that can be hard to grasp through text or images alone. You can use Smartcat AI for learning content to create videos with AI dubbing and an AI avatar.

Using high-quality recording equipment and tools such as Vimeo Create, Flexclip, and Loom, you can incorporate animations, subtitles, and even quizzes. These can support learning, help employees retain information, and improve learner engagement.

In this article, we’ve walked you through how to create effective training materials for your employees.

As with all processes, we would recommend that you review and test your training materials with a sample group and incorporate their feedback before introducing your training assets to the wider team.

Their insights and behavior will be crucial to ensuring that different learning styles are catered to and that learners come away with a good knowledge of the subject from the materials they are given.

From a process perspective, it’s also important to continuously improve on these documents, incorporating the latest technology to enhance the presentation of the information, as well as keeping it aligned and updated with your industry’s recognized best practices.