Keep reading to download our employee training checklist, plus see how you can build your own template.
Most employee training fails long before anyone opens a slide deck or logs into an LMS.
Not because the content is bad.
Not because employees don’t care.
But because the training itself was never properly designed, structured, or tracked.
Too often, “training” lives in someone’s head, a half-finished document, or a scattered mix of emails, calendar invites, and best intentions. The result? Missed steps, inconsistent delivery, unclear ownership, and no real way to measure whether the training actually worked.
That’s where a well-built employee training checklist changes everything.
A checklist turns training from a one-off event into a repeatable, reliable process.
It forces clarity around goals, audience, delivery, and outcomes. It makes preparation visible, content creation manageable, delivery consistent, and improvement continuous.
Keep reading to learn:
- What an employee training checklist is
- Why you need an employee training checklist
- How to make your own employee training checklist
- Plus, an employee training checklist template you can use
Let’s get started.
What is an employee training checklist?
In broad terms, an employee training checklist is a go-to for getting your training off the ground.
It’s a guideline for learning creators in your company to create content that hits the mark
It runs through all the key components needed in any good training programme meaning that you don’t miss a single step when it comes to training prep, development, delivery and evaluation.
But there are different types of employee training checklists out there. It’s not just about creating course content.
While an employee training checklist is predominantly for L&D leaders building and delivering training, it could also be useful for:
- Managers or team leaders to identify skill gaps
- Employees tracking their learning goals and ensure they’re learning the right content to fit into the wider organisational goal
Why do you need an employee training checklist?
According to research, 59% of employees say training directly improves their job performance. It’s clear that poorly structured training can hinder learning if it’s not aligned with employee needs.
An employee training checklist can help you to create better training that is rooted in organisational goals, but personalised to individual needs. With different checklists in play, you can ensure everyone who touches your learning content is getting what they need from it; from learners, to managers, to HR leaders.
A training checklist can be useful for a number of reasons:
Checklists ensure consistency
Relying on memory is always going to yield different results and if you’re relying on someone to remember every aspect of training that they need to include in a new module or piece of content, chances are something will be missed.
A checklist is a solid and reliable safety net, and it ensures that all the right things are shared with the right people. That means better experiences from the get go, and also fewer errors.
Effective in more ways than one
Training checklists allow you to be more effective, and also to measure that effectiveness.
Clearly documented objectives and a structured plan help keep trainers and employees focused and on track.
Consequently, L&D teams will find it easier to measure learning outcomes when they know exactly what they’re tracking against.
Ensure compliance
In regulated industries, your training is even more important due to the legalities surrounding it.
Whether you’re in healthcare and need to repeat certain medical training yearly, or you’re in manufacturing and have health and safety training to do, a training checklist becomes your formal framework for business-critical courses.
It means less headache for you knowing that your learners have done the courses you need them to.
💡 Pro Tip
Remember, in an LMS, this is even easier to track with compliance-led reporting options. Our platform allows you to see current, real-time compliance data at a few clicks of a mouse.
How to make an employee training checklist
There are four key stages to learning: preparation, creation, delivery and review. Going through each step is key to ensuring that the right data is included at the right point.
Let’s go through them one by one:
Stage 1: Prepare your programme
Before you do anything, you need to prepare what it is you’re making, and who it is for.
So, make sure you:
- Confirm the approved training budget
- Define the target audience (roles, experience level, team size)
- Clearly outline training goals, objectives, and desired outcomes
- Establish effectiveness and quality benchmarks (and conduct pre-training assessments where required)
- Assess individual and team learning needs
- Develop the training schedule and rollout timeline
- Secure training venue (if applicable)
- Confirm all technical and system requirements
- Send training invitations, including attendance or access instructions
- Track and confirm participant enrollment numbers
Include this information at the top as it makes it super clear who you are creating content for, and the core functions that need to be set up first; e.g. finding a venue, or sourcing a trainer.
Step 2: Develop your content
From here is the tricky bit, creating your content.
Whether it’s SCORM files on an LMS, or slideshows for an in-person presentation, creating the right content for the right people and making it as applicable as possible is key.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Create a detailed training outline and structure
- Identify key learning topics or modules
- Align each topic/module with defined training goals and outcomes
- Match learning topics with appropriate delivery methods and activities e.g., workshops, eLearning, discussions, hands-on exercises
- Design and develop training materials for each topic/module. Make sure to include exercises, practical tasks, and assessments
- Compile a list of required resources such as training materials, learning aids, software, tools, handouts
- Source, test, and finalise all training resources
This is where your employee training checklist could become a bit of a beast. Try to keep it concise even if you’re creating a raft of modules for a new training subject.
Step 3: Deliver the training
Whether you’re training is in-person, online or blended, you can deliver your training in the same way. To do that, there are some key things that need to be done first:
- Test all technical equipment and systems prior to delivery
- Welcome participants and confirm attendance
- Present the training agenda, checklist and learning objectives
- Facilitate discussions and learner interactions via engagement tools on your LMS
- Encourage questions and provide clear, accurate responses
- Monitor engagement and participation throughout the session
- Summarise key learning points and outline next steps
Step 4: Review and Improve
As with any learning content, or process in fact, you should constantly be reiterating it based on feedback and data.
For your employee training checklist, make sure that as you’re updating your content, you’re reflecting that in your checklist too.
- Collect learning data using post-training assessments, manually collected records and automated system or LMS reports
- Analyse training effectiveness, including: completion and pass rates, assessment scores, time spent learning, progress through modules and engagement and activity levels
- Gather learner feedback through group discussions or debriefs, evaluation forms and surveys
- Review feedback, identify improvement areas, and implement changes for future training
To do this successfully, you will need to come back to your checklist regularly and update it as you go.
We would suggest creating one single-truth checklist for each piece of content. Your reports and LMS should report on any fluctuations.
Ideally, try and reflect on your training at the same point each time e.g. 1 month after the course has been launched or delivered etc.
Employee training checklist template
Want the cheat’s version of the above? Lucky for you, we’ve made an employee training checklist template that you can use as a starting point.
Related: What to include in your onboarding checklist
Ready for your checklist?
Download our template and get access to all the key steps listed above, as well as some nifty little systems to track your progress.