Developing and nurturing your employees can come with a lot of benefits to both them and your business.
You could carry out extra one-on-one meetings every month or invest in a professional trainer to run a series of sessions.
Either way, training for your employees can lead to an increase in sales and profits.
If you're not convinced here are a few reasons why you should provide training for your employees.
Don't worry, I've explained how to implement it in your workplace too.
The Stats
Businesses who don’t implement a satisfactory training scheme are running a risk of increasing their own staff turnover rates.
Two out of three UK workers admit that they’ve changed job because of a lack of training and development opportunities.
Further research also echoed these findings, revealing that 46% of employees said that their next move will probably be to another company.
The resourcing and talent planning advisor at the CIPD, Claire McCartney, told HR magazine: “We’ve seen from our research that training spends are down”. Adding: “It’s really important that employers identify the development needs of their employees. This will also help employers avoid being constantly hit by high recruitment costs as staff seek development elsewhere.”
However, it’s not all doom and gloom as the same report found that the average tenure for a UK worker increased from 8.2 years to 9.4 years.
This backs up the point that 88% of employees say that there is nothing wrong with staying in the same job for a longer time if they are presented with the opportunities to develop.
So while there is a cause for concern, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That's providing your business takes the necessary steps.
The benefits of providing training for your employees
There are many reasons why you should seriously consider giving your employees more training.
For instance, if your staff are given practical ways to complete their job more quickly, you’ll see an increase in productivity.
As an example, you could introduce a new CRM system to your sales team. Why? It would make the cold call process more transparent and accurate.
This way, your sales employees won’t waste time trying to figure out what a customer wants when the information is accessible on their laptop.
This same example of practical training can also lead to a better quality of work. Obviously, this has a positive knock-on effect on customer satisfaction rates too.
While unemployment rates are at an all-time low, upskilling is a growing trend in businesses today due to its significant role in cutting recruitment costs and improving staff retention.
If your business is constantly evolving and creating new services for clients and/or customers, do you hire someone else in to do a new job?
Upskilling can save you a lot of money and help you positively expand business growth and increase management opportunities.
Instead of trying a new and unknown quantity, you can invest in a reliable employee who might be able to flourish into a role.
Pro recruiter tip If you’re wondering how you’re supposed to know whether your current employees can carry out a new job or skill, you should just ask. It's quite a simple solution. Though, you’ll be surprised how many business owners don’t invest or even trust their loyal current employees with a new opportunity. This all stems from your work culture. Building a trusting and happy environment for your employees is the very key to unearthing talents you didn’t know that your team already possessed. Try arranging a monthly informal meeting with each employee to gauge their mood and to raise any concerns. It’s also vital to let them know that you have an open door policy to pop in for a chat.
Team training and bonding exercises can also encourage a stronger staff morale and motivation to succeed for each other.
This can consist of anything. You could consider a night out and go-karting with your employees.
Or maybe you could hire a professional trainer to run a fun training day.
Sometimes the above aren’t feasible. In that case, you could provide reading and software resources instead.
These are great examples of offering training for your employees.
This method will also enable you to identify who is actively willing to work and those who don’t really have your business’ best interests at heart.
How to identify whether your employees need more training?
The obvious starting point would be to look at your staff retention rate.
If it’s low and you can clearly see a revolving door policy. That means that there’s a strong possibility that you’re not giving your staff the training, support and opportunities to grow.
Another way to recognise whether you’re providing an adequate amount of training for your employees is to run an assessment.
This could consist of staff satisfaction surveys. You could also consider bringing in an independent assessor to monitor behaviours and to create a plan for your business.
The latter will give you an idea of any gaps and areas where you need to train current staff.
Personality tests are also useful in highlighting the type of workforce that you currently have.
Perhaps you find that you have a team of extroverts who are very sales orientated. In that case, you should bring a different employee over from another team who is more of an introvert.
They tend to be a more logical type of person and will add a different dimension to the team dynamic.
Summing up
Whether you already offer some kind of training for your employees or none at all, you should always be actively looking for ways to improve your offering.
Keep your employees happy and you’ll prosper both financially and emotionally.
For more inspiration on ways to keep your staff happy, you might find these two blogs useful:
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