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How to Develop Effective Training Materials (+ Templates)
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How to Develop Effective Training Materials (+ Templates)

Written by:
Raja Antony

Nov 21, 2023


As a business owner, you know the importance of training your employees to run and grow your business.

But how do you train your employees in the most effective way possible? Creating training materials is one of the best ways to do that. Without it, your training programs will lose their effectiveness.

However, crafting effective training materials and keeping them up to date is not an easy task. It's an ever-going process that requires a lot of time, effort and relevant experience.

To help anyone create engaging training materials effortlessly, Visme comes with a wide variety of training materials templates.

Continue reading to develop effective training materials for employees without stressing out too much. Also, get some training materials templates from this article to create your own.

Here’s a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit training materials templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

 

Table of Contents

Quick Read

  • Training materials are content types necessary for a training program or activity that involves learning.
  • Using training materials lowers the cost of training, saves time by reducing development time, increases consistency, makes training more measurable and encourages more learning.
  • Training materials include learning objectives, a content outline, detailed instructions, real-world examples, task instructions, org charts, practice exercises and test questions.
  • Some training material examples include handouts, videos, presentations, checklists and training manuals.
  • To develop training materials, you must identify your needs, choose a delivery method, create a timeline, write an outline, keep it short and easy to understand, use templates and add visuals.
  • Use customizable training material templates by Visme to create effective training materials for your business learning activities.

 

What Are Training Materials?

Training materials are all kinds of content that are a necessary part of any training program or activity that involves learning acquisition and retention. They include written documents, manuals or handbooks, video presentations and online training courses.

Employee training materials are created for a variety of reasons. Some organizations want to improve employee performance, while others are looking to reduce training costs. You can also use them to differentiate your company from competitors or make your employees more competitive in the marketplace.

 

What Is the Importance of Training Materials?

We'll explore why training materials are so important and how you can use them in your classroom or on-the-job learning experience.

Lowers the Cost of Training

One of the crucial benefits of using training materials is that they help you lower your training costs. This is especially true if you are training a large number of people and need to use multiple locations or different days of the week.

Suppose you need to train 50 employees. It will be cheaper for you to create training materials than arrange a conference or training course for them at once.

Saves Time by Reducing Development Time

If a person is hired, they need to be trained on the same materials used by their predecessor. This means you need to create a new set of materials each time someone comes aboard.

Instead of doing this repetitively or hiring outside help, you can save time and money by using a training materials template. With our training materials template, you can create training material for multiple employees at once—and even reuse those later if necessary!

Increases Consistency

Inconsistent training materials can lead to confusion and a lack of understanding. This may result in an employee not knowing how or when to use the correct processes or procedures.

To help ensure that your employees receive consistent information about their jobs, you should consider using training materials for each position within your organization. Multiple trainers can use these materials at once, covering all aspects of job duties.

Keep your training materials
on-brand and engaging

  • Keep your team informed with branded materials on company news, announcements and upcoming events
  • Ensure employees have the information they need to perform their roles and responsibilities
  • Keep information across all documents up-to-date with Dynamic Fields

Sign up. It’s free.

Keep your training materials on-brand and engaging

Makes Training More Measurable

You can measure how effective your training is by the number of people who complete it. You can also use quantitative data to determine whether you're reaching the right people or if they're getting the right information.

Visme comes with an analytics tool that will help measure the effectiveness of your training materials. See the number of people that viewed your training materials and the total time they spent on those using this amazing tool.

Here's a detailed video that helps you learn more about Visme's analytics tool.

Encourages More Learning

Another key benefit of training materials is that different people, departments and locations can use them.
If you want your employees to learn a new skill, you just have to access the right type of training material. Having good quality training materials can help employees feel more confident about what they are doing and encourage them to perform better.

Read this article to discover how to implement hybrid learning in your employee's training program.

 

What to Include in Training Materials

Before you create the training materials, make sure that you prepare the content you want to include in them. Here are some of the key elements that your training materials should cover.

Learning objectives - What do you want your learners to achieve by the end of the training? Be clear and specific about what you expect them to know or be able to do.

Content outline - Give an overview of the topics covered in training. This will help learners see the overall structure and know what to expect.

Detailed instructions - Make sure your instructions are clear and easy to follow. Include step-by-step directions when appropriate.

Real-world examples - Use examples that learners can relate to and that will help them understand the concepts being taught.

Task instructions - You may want to include simple instructions for each task your new hires need to complete. This can be a helpful way to introduce new employees to the tasks they need to do and provide context for why they do them.

Organizational charts - You might also want to include a chart that shows how your department functions. This can help team members understand where they fit in the organization and how their work contributes to the greater good.

Practice exercises - Give learners opportunities to practice what they have learned so they can master the skills.

Test questions - Include questions at the end of the training to check for understanding and gauge whether objectives have been met.

Use this employee training worksheet to keep track of your employee training sessions.

Employee Training Worksheet
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

 

Examples of Training Materials

Handouts - A handout is a written document you distribute to your employees so they can read it at their own pace. It's an excellent way to communicate information quickly and effectively. This can be a print out of checklist or a dichotomous key.

Videos - Video clips are another great way for employees to learn new skills quickly. However, video tends not to work well in certain situations where there aren't enough screen monitors around (like meeting rooms).

Presentations - An oral presentation where you present your material in front of an audience. This type of training involves speaking with the trainees and explaining what they will learn from it.

Create your presentations using Visme's presentation software. Visme offers thousands of presentation templates you can customize with icons, illustrations, data widgets, charts, graphs and more.

Present like a pro using the presentation software that includes advanced features like presenter notes and prompts that are visible to you only.

Here's a guide that shows you how to create and use training presentations.

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

Watch the video below to learn more about creating interactive presentations to keep your audience engaged.

Checklists - A checklist includes any necessary steps and their completion dates/times/dates for each step. Checklists are useful for ensuring that all of the steps are completed and can be used to help employees keep track of their progress.

Training Manuals - A training manual is a small handbook that includes a set of instructions to improve the quality of a process, task or job. These manuals are perfect for training new employees before the onboarding process.

You can create the manuals using Visme's professional training manual templates. Choose a suitable template from the massive library and customize it to onboard or train new employees.

 

How to Develop Training Materials in 8 Steps

Now that you know what to include in training materials and the types available, it's time to create your own. We've put together eight simple steps below to help you make your training materials and achieve your training goals in the easiest way possible.

Made with Visme Infographic Maker

Step 1: Identify Your Training Needs

The first step to developing training materials is to identify training needs. This is a vital part of the process because it helps you determine the type of content you should prepare.

Different roles require different training programs. For example, a creative agency may need to introduce new employees to certain procedures. Employees in sales may need to learn how to prospect new clients while the designers would have to learn how the creative process works in your agencies.

The training materials for this course may include videos and written instructions that explain these procedures in detail.

Step 2: Choose Your Delivery Method

How you deliver your training significantly impacts your training material development. There are different methods to deliver your training materials, such as:

  • Live webinars
  • In-person training
  • Slide decks
  • Online classes
  • Written training manuals

Choose the appropriate method according to your training needs and business operations. For example, a small business can take advantage of in-person training. On the other hand, a large enterprise will benefit from online classes that require less coordination.

Step 3: Create a Timeline for Training Development

The best way to plan employee training is to develop a timeline and follow it. This helps you know when your training will be delivered, how long it will take to develop and what materials need to be created.

Start by identifying the resources you will use in developing your employee training. Once you have identified all of your options, prioritize them based on their cost, time required and quality level.

Now that you have identified your resources, create a training schedule for delivering each piece of content. The first step should be determining when you will deliver each piece of content so that the most appropriate time can be scheduled for delivery.

Create your timeline using Visme's professionally designed timeline templates and the free timeline maker.

Step 4: Create an Outline

You might get tempted to start writing your content by now. But, it would be better if you created a detailed outline first, as it helps you organize your content and makes the process easier.

The best way to create an outline for your training material is by evaluating the job or task. This allows your employees to understand the content quickly and easily.

For example, if you are writing a digital marketer training manual, it might go like this:

  1. Introduction
  2. Objectives
  3. Managing daily tasks
  4. Developing marketing strategies
  5. Managing campaigns
  6. Content creation
  7. Summary

Here is an example template with the outline mentioned above.

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

You can organize your training materials however you want. But make sure to segment the information in a way that your employees find most useful.

Step 5: Keep It Short and Easy To Understand

One of the most common mistakes new employees make is not being able to grasp the information they learn in training. Ensure your employees take in as much information as possible without being overburdened by too many details.

Keep your training materials short and easy to understand. Use slides, videos and even infographics instead of long-form content.

Use the Visme AI Writer to help you summarize content that’s too long or finesse text that’s convoluted.

Step 6: Use a Training Materials Template

If you are a non-designer, creating any training material from scratch can be difficult.
Choose a template from the list below or Visme's training materials template library and customize them according to your needs.

Add, remove, duplicate and move around pages; change background colors, text, images, fonts colors and many more.

If you need extra help creating a training document, take advantage of Visme’s AI document creator to help you get started on the right foot in terms of unique design and layout.

Step 7: Add Visuals to Keep Learners Engaged

Keeping the learners engaged is one of your biggest challenges while training them. Researchers found that visual aids can improve learning by up to 400 percent. So, use visuals in the training materials to increase engagement and information retention.

Here are the visuals that can make your training materials more effective.

High-Quality Images

Research shows that 90% of information transmitted to the human brain is visual. Hence, include relevant images wherever possible to help your readers retain more information.

Visme's stock photo library features over 1,000,000 high-res images that are free to use. Browse and search across any keyword to find the image you need.

If you already have images to include in your training materials, upload and edit them using Visme's photo editor or AI image editing tools, and add them to your training materials. Watch the video below to learn how to edit photos in Visme.

Videos

Videos are undoubtedly the most engaging content format. They help demonstrate complex concepts and deliver information more effectively. Also, they can retain the learner's attention for longer than any other format.

Use Visme's free online video maker to create explainer videos, animated videos, interactive videos and more.

Charts and Graphs

Don't make your training program a data dump. Use charts and graphs to present data effectively to your learners. These visuals will help you explain complex concepts, reinforce the core message and make insights memorable.

how to add charts to a training material template.

Create 30+ charts and graphs like bar graphs, pie charts, line graphs, table charts and many more using Visme's chart maker and graph maker.

Infographics

Studies have revealed that people following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than those without directions. And an infographic is the best way to combine text with visuals.

Use infographics in your training materials to present complex information in an easy-to-understand format. For example, use an interactive decision tree, this is a an infographic designed to assist employees with strategic decision-making or troubleshooting.

Visme comes with 1000+ free infographic templates for different topics, industries and business types. Customize them using the free infographic maker to turn your training content into stunning visuals. Watch the video below to learn how to create infographics within minutes.

Flowcharts

If you want to teach your employees about a new business process or a complex workflow, flowcharts can be the best way to do that. They help to represent a series of steps and guide the learners through.

Learn about the different types of flowcharts and use Visme's professionally designed flowchart templates to create your own.

Check out our video guide below to learn to create flowcharts using Visme's flowchart maker.

Step 8: Share the Training Materials

Once you finish creating the training materials in Visme, it's time to download and share them with your employees. With Visme, you can download training material in SCORM and xAPI formats to upload it to your learning and development software easily.

Generate an invitation link and share it with your team to collaborate. With the collaboration features, you and your team can work on a project together. Use Workflows to assign entire projects or specific tasks to particular team members.

Watch the video below to learn more.

Visme allows you to download your training materials in various formats such as JPG, PNG, PDF, HTML5 and more.

Publish your training materials online or share them on social media channels directly using a link. Generate an embed code for your booklet and add it anywhere on a web page using a code snippet.

Here is a training workbook template to help you design practical and appealing training programs.

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

 

10 Training Materials Templates

Now that you know how to create training materials, are you ready to create your own? Visme has the different types of training materials templates we have already discussed.

1. Product Training Presentation Training Materials Template

Let's start with this product training presentation. Product training is an essential part of your business success. Customize this template to educate your customers on how to use your product.

Learn more about color combinations that will suit your design and change the colors in this template using Visme's color dropper tool.

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

 

2. Training Course Presentation Training Materials Template

As we've already discussed, presentations make for great training materials. This presentation template is specially designed for training purposes. It features a checklist, a timeline, icons, statistics and other content.

The text blocks in this presentation template are brief and explanatory, helping your trainees retain the information better.

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

3. Employee Handbook Training Materials Template

This employee handbook template can be excellent training material, especially for after-training purposes. It includes your company's core values, work schedule and time off, code of conduct and performance expectations.

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

Help your employees understand the work environment and company culture better with this colorful training materials template. Replace the images in this template with your own to make it more engaging.

how to pick and add images to training material in Visme editor

4. Communication Skills Training Materials Template

Communication is the key in workplaces. It boots employee morale, productivity, satisfaction and engagement. This aesthetically pleasing keynote presentation template will help you give an astounding presentation on workplace communication.

Add images from Visme's stock image library or upload and insert your own to make a lasting impression on your learners. Set the tone for your presentation by adding a stylish font combination from the Visme editor.

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

5. Training Needs Assessment Worksheet Template

Identifying the training needs of your employees is the first step in developing the training materials. This training needs assessment worksheet template is designed to help you define your employees' existing skills and competencies.

Use this template and fill in the details to understand your employees' training needs.

Training Needs Assessment Worksheet
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

6. Training Exercise Worksheet Template

This training exercise worksheet template can be used for fun interactive learning. It allows you to create a few questions about your training topic and ask the trainees to fill in the blanks.

This way, you will be able to gauge the effectiveness of your training sessions while keeping your learners engaged.

Training Exercise Worksheet
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

7. Training Booklet Training Materials Template

Booklets are well known for their ability to cover a lot of information on a particular topic in a few pages. Businesses use them to promote their products and services. However, you can use them to create your training materials when you want to keep them short and to the point.

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

Use this training booklet template to set your employees up for success. Make your booklets more engaging by adding Visme's new flipbook effect. This feature allows your audience to engage with the booklet as though they are holding them in their hands.

how to turn on the flipbook effect in Visme

8. Social Media Manager Training Manual Template

Are you looking for a document to include detailed training content for your new employees? This training manual template can be the best for you. It offers a detailed overview of your training offerings and creates a lifelong learning culture for your existing and new employees.

Visme offers a wide range of training manual templates for almost every job role. Find one that matches your business needs and customize it to make your own.

Visme's drag-and-drop editor allows you to customize every aspect of your documents easily.

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

9. Employee Handbook Training Materials Template

Handbooks perfectly set the tone for your organization by outlining your core values and expectations. This employee handbook template includes the business's mission statement, company history, work ethics and expectations from an employee.

The data widgets, icons, illustrations, and other graphic elements make for an awesome learning experience for your employees. Plus, you can add an interactive worksheet to the employee handbook to boost knowledge retention of the training material.

Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

Take your training materials to the next level. Choose from thousands of vector icons and 3D animated graphics to add to your training materials.

dding 3D animated graphics to the employee handbook template

10. Hiring Process Flowchart Template

If you want to help your learners identify the essential steps of a process while offering the bigger picture, include a flowchart in the training materials. It uses symbols to outline the separate steps of the process in sequential order.

Educate your HR team about your organization's hiring process using this informative flowchart template.

Include different types of training materials in your training program to diversify content. If possible, you can use each type of training material mentioned in this article to get the maximum results.

Hiring Process Flowchart
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

 

 

Customize Your Training Materials Template In Visme

Training material is critical to any organization's learning and development plan. So you must take the time to develop engaging and effective training materials. Thanks to this guide, now you know how to create effective training material for your courses or training and development activities.

Even if you get bogged down in a rush to meet an arbitrary deadline, don't worry. Choose a suitable training materials template from the list above and customize it to develop your training materials in no time.

Sign-up for Visme and start customizing your training materials template now!

Raja Antony
Written by Raja Antony

Raja Antony Mandal is a content writer at Visme with 5+ years of experience in the B2B SaaS space. With a background in English Literature, he is passionate about using storytelling techniques to inform and engage readers. Raja writes about visual content creation, design tips and marketing strategies, and his specialty is making complex topics easy to understand.

He also knows the fundamentals of on-page and off-page SEO, which helps him rank his articles high in search engine results. In his free time, he enjoys playing guitar and tabla. You can connect with Raja on LinkedIn.

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