There are numerous surveys, which indicate that over 40% of the employees who undergo poor job training tend to resign from their positions within a short span of 1 year. The principle reason for moving on, as cited by such employees, is the lack of proper skill development and training programs. Incorporating training programs that develop your employees towards long-term career goals promotes greater job satisfaction among them. Skilling your staff is not only good for your workforce, it is also great for your business. Satisfied employees are likely to be more productive and tend to stay longer with the organization.
When the budgets get cut, the first things to be slashed are training and employee development programs. However, this practice might just get expensive and counterproductive. Here are a few reasons that throw some light on the importance of investing in employee training programs.
The Cost of Turnover is Worth Considering
When employees leave your organization due to lack of proper training, the overall cost of turnover just gets higher. With one less worker, the productivity slips, places extra burden on the existing employees and the sales drastically decline. At times, staff morale might also suffer. Furthermore, the time spent on screening and interviewing new candidates to replace the old employee is phenomenal. Once you hire new candidates, they have to be trained all over again. All these add up to the costs of employee turnover.
Collective Knowledge of your Project Team is Enhanced
Encouraging your entire team to get trained in pertinent subjects or applications, such as an advanced software program course, which they use daily, is a great decision. This will have an immediate impact on the productivity. Besides, professional development will also help in raising the overall staff expertise, when the employees come from vastly different backgrounds.
Boost Job Satisfaction of Your Employees
When your staff members will be able to do their jobs efficiently, they become more confident. This leads to enhanced job satisfaction and higher employee retention. The best way is to consider offering your staff with career development opportunities, such as job shadowing, cross training and mentorships. This makes them more prominent (and/or versatile) players in your organization.
Make Your Business More Appealing
When you provide professional development programs, you are building a new positive reputation as an establishment, which cares about its staff and strives to hire only the best. Therefore, your clients will also benefit from this. They will be able to receive efficient and tech-savvy services. Your employees are the brand ambassadors of your company. When they attend seminars and conferences, they will be representing and reflecting everything that is positive and good about your organization.
Attract Candidates who are in Demand
If you really want to reap the cream of the crop, then investing in good training and development programs will be a great way to achieve it. Potential candidates with great skills will look out for organizations, which believe in overall development of the employees. Therefore, you can include these when you advertise a job opening. Most of the prospective employees understand this too. Professional certifications will fetch them good raises, higher salaries as well as promotions. When applicants know that there is a potential to enhance their skill sets and compensation with your company, you are more likely to get candidates with great potential.
Beefing up the Retention Strategy
Every worker looks forward to make a difference to the organization and grow. However, if your staff or the team members do not feel challenged or if they sense any stagnation in the career, they will certainly look for growth opportunities elsewhere. Lifelong learning will expose your workers to novel experiences and opportunities. This keeps them occupied in their work. Once you are able to establish such kind of enthusiasm amongst your staff, you can expect loyalty.
Successor Planning made Easier
Mentorship and leadership development programs are the tools used for grooming the future leaders of your organization. If you look forward to promote your existing staff to managerial positions, down the years, then targeted training will help you. This helps you to be assured that your current team members are prepared and well-equipped to climb up the corporate ladder.
Stay Ahead of Your Competitors
Standing still without upgrading your business can simply kill your business. However, by ensuring that your staff are continuously advancing, you will also continue to move ahead and remain competitive within your marketplace.
Identify the Weakness and the Skill Gaps
Regular training enables businesses to identify the gaps between the industry requirement and a lack in the skill sets of your employees. Identifying this will help businesses in precisely training and upgrading their employees with the necessary skill sets to bridge this gap.
Wrapping Up
As discussed above, ongoing training programs are extremely important. These programs not only benefit the employee, but also help the organization in growing and establishing themselves in this competitive industry. This makes employee training program a worthy investment.
Reference:
http://www.trainingindustry.com/content-development/articles/training-best-practices-and-organizational-success.aspx