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When you've worked for a company for many years, you take for granted its technology learning curve. You may think that most employees will learn as they go, and you quickly forget the struggles and pains you faced when beginning your new career path. Many companies face this hurdle, and they should all learn how to negotiate it.

After gaining feedback from various new hires and experienced employees over the course of a year, you may suddenly realize that you need to provide training to not only those new hires joining your firm directly from college, but also those who have entered the firm and slipped under the training radar.

While outsourcing technology training is one solution, implementing an internal technology training program is another option. While deciding that you need to develop a technology training program is easy, deciding on how and when to implement the program can be more challenging. You need to determine which technologies should be included in the program, who should teach the curriculum and how it should be taught. Last, but not least, you must train the trainers. After much trial and error, you will be able to develop a program that successfully provides your employees with the technology skills they need in order to perform their duties to the fullest.

Decide Which Technologies Should Be Taught
As most accountants know, there are more than a few technology programs used to get a businessperson through his or her daily activities. Besides the audit, trial balance and tax software used, you also need to provide guidance on technologies such as time and billing, referral tracking, performance management and CPE tracking software, to name a few. Before long, your quick technology review can turn into a program that reviews many different software programs and lasts several days.

In an ever-changing industry, where time is limited, the people who need training may want a shorter program. Once you decide on which programs to teach, highlight the most important information. Limiting the instruction to those essential skills needed to complete everyday tasks will help keep the program length manageable and attendees interested. Knowing in advance the number of programs and the volume of information needed to be taught can help you adequately plan and execute your program.

Decide Who Should Teach the Technology

Deciding who should deliver the material is more complicated. If you have multiple locations, have a team representative from each office lead a training session so as to make the training easily accessible and more flexible. Also, choose facilitators that are vibrant and enthusiastic, can capture the attention of the audience and can deliver the information in a manner that is easily understood.

Decide How to Teach the Technology
This decision can be complex. With a fluctuating number of people joining a company at any given time, it's usually hard to find a time that will work best for all. Delivering the program to each new hire would bog down the instructors, but offering it only a few times a year would mean that some employees might go awhile before learning what they need to know. Trying to limit start dates within a company is not feasible.

Instead, consider expanding your trainer group to include multiple teams, and run the program as much as every other week. Frequent training sessions would allow new employees to get up to speed within the first two weeks of their start date, and the trainers would only give up two days a month. It is important to settle on a regular schedule so that new employees get similar experiences on their first day of work and all employees feel prepared to complete their daily duties.

Train Your Trainers
A good presenter makes teaching look easy, but for the novice there are many things that new trainers need to learn. Teaching the importance of making the program interactive, delivering the information in a way that meets the audience's needs (and level), and giving tips on presentation skills will ensure that the program is a success and that the attendees retain information. This allows your instructor to do a better job and opens up a whole new group of lecturers for future seminars.

Once you decide on the technologies to be taught, select the instructors, draft a plan for the program and train the trainers, your program is ready to go. Not only will new employees be able to take advantage of this training, but other employees might like to take the refresher class. After the program successfully runs for a few months, you can feel confident that you achieved your objective — to provide your staff with the appropriate technology skills to help them operate at peak performance.

Joelle B. Lyons, CPA, is a campus recruiter with Amper, Politziner & Mattia, LLP. She has developed and delivered numerous training programs at Amper. She is also a member of the New Jersey Society of CPAs Student Programs & Scholarships Committee. Lyons can be reached at lyons@amper.com or 732-287-1000, ext. 230.