Training your staff is best for retention
What is the benefit of training new staff members?
As an employer, after hiring a new member of staff, you are probably keen for that person to be productive immediately and in turn, start to bring money into your business.
And that may well be possible in some situations. However, often, training must be provided so that the new employee can perform the duties of the post for which they were hired and be successful in their new role.
Training new members of staff is no different from providing training to existing members of staff. Whether staff are new or long-standing they probably all require some type of training to enable them to perform better.
Why should you invest in training?
Well, it depends on your role.
If you are the employer, then you need to invest in training your staff to make them productive members of the team. The training might be business specific (how the business operates and its products and services), compliance with legal requirements, or technical – such as how to create Power Apps.
Whatever the reason, there should be an identified skills gap.
If you are an employee, training improves your skills, enables you to perform better in your job, shows that your employer is interested in your personal development, and increases job satisfaction and motivation. All these points make for a happier work environment for both the employer and employee therefore, both job roles benefit from a training experience.
If I pay to train someone, won’t they leave for a better job?
I’ve heard this said many times and it misses the point. If every employer thought like that, then no one would ever get trained!
Surely, the question should be if I don’t train my staff, won’t they leave for a better employer? Employees want to feel supported in their role, especially if they are new to the job role or company. Providing them with training will ease the transition into a new environment and job role.
Without adequate support and training, employees could be left feeling useless and unwanted causing them to look elsewhere for a job where they will get the support that they require.
Why the cost of training should be viewed as an investment
One potential barrier is the cost of training.
As an alternative to attending a course, staff are sometimes asked to learn on their own using freely available material on the Internet. Whilst there are undoubtedly many very good blogs and YouTube videos, asking staff to learn in this way is likely ineffective and may well require even more time than attending a course because of the time spent searching for good material.
In contrast, attending an instructor-led course (providing that it is a good match for the training needs) is likely to be more effective than learning on one’s own. In an instructor-led course, students can ask questions and learn from other attendees. The interactive environment should allow attendees to take in more information, therefore, allowing the training to be far more effective.
In a business, investments are crucial to enable a company to grow, some may argue one of the biggest investments should be in your staff. They are essential to the day-to-day running of the company and without them, it would cease to exist. This thought alone should be enough to prove the importance of training staff and doing so to a high level.
The shift to online courses
An instructor-led course isn’t necessarily in-person, many training companies now offer courses online which saves travel time and hotel expenses. Online courses mean that small companies with tighter budgets can offer their employees training courses without the fear of the cost. Whilst the course still has to be paid for (most of the time) having it online reduces both the monetary and timely cost of traveling for training.
It even makes more varied classes possible – I delivered an online course on the Microsoft Power Platform to a group of 4 students where everyone (including me) was based in a different country. This permits employees to learn the skill set of the course and pick up tips from companies based across the world that could help them in their daily tasks.
This doesn’t mean that there is no place for self-study; there absolutely is. But you need to ensure that the identified skills gap can be met in this way.
Which training courses are most relevant?
Technical training should be provided as and when needed and not just to meet an annual review target. The training needs to be relevant to a project in the business.
I’m sure you are familiar with the idea that unless you practice new skills they are soon forgotten. For example, there isn’t much point in sending someone on a course to learn C# programming if they are never going to be asked to write any code.
On the other hand, some types of “soft-skills” training such as effective presentations, communication skills, and staff management are probably relevant to staff in most organizations and can be undertaken at any time.
Summary
Training is the key to success. It makes for happier and more motivated employees due to the support and training that they are receiving from their employer. This allows employees to prosper, employers to meet support needs, and businesses to grow and achieve more.
Relevant and timely training of staff is important for any organization.
Ignore it and staff will leave!