As a manager or business owner, you wouldn’t hire an unqualified person. However, there comes a time when even the best employee with the most impressive credentials becomes under qualified for a job. Lightning-fast technological developments and the adoption of new industry practices are just some of the reasons behind why this could happen. Inevitably, an employee’s credentials will no longer be sufficient to fulfill the ever-changing needs of the workplace.
That’s why employee training is vital to any organization. Of course, this will mean spending company resources, including time and money. In some cases, you may also need to involve a third party organization to conduct the training. Still, even with all of these costs at your end, employee training is still well worth the investment. Here’s why.
Improves Employee Performance
This is perhaps the primary reason you should train your employees: improving their performance. The right training programs equip employees with new and better skills and a greater understanding of their role. As such, they’ll be more empowered to meet their goals, to consistently produce high-quality output, and to deliver an even more positive business impact, and overall, to be more efficient and productive. All of these factors build an employee’s confidence and competence, putting them in a perfect position to help lead your company to greater success.
Addresses Employee Weaknesses
Even your best people will have some weaknesses when it comes to workplace skills. For example, an artist may not be a great public speaker or presenter. Perhaps an employee has great potential to be a leader but needs to brush up on project management skills. A new team member might have excellent knowledge of the latest techniques but might need time management training. In short, no one employee is perfect, and that is alright, because, through employee training programs, you’ll be able to address all of these weaknesses and strengthen everyone’s potential. When all of your staff are knowledgeable, everyone can work independently while still being able to collaborate. Moreover, this will reduce the need for your supervision, so you can focus on other facets of improving your organization, like company expansion or building new partnerships.
Improves Employee Satisfaction and Morale
If your employees feel inadequate or unsupported, they feel unhappy in the workplace. This will cause them to under perform and thus result in losses. Investing in your people through training programs is one way of showing that you value them and their contributions to the company. This, in turn, makes your people more engaged and more willing to put in quality work. Moreover, employees who feel appreciated and valued have a higher job satisfaction. As a result, these satisfied employees tend to be more productive.
Giving your people work perks like employee training also makes them feel more emotionally invested. They not only care about their own jobs, but the company as a whole, because they feel that they have a bigger stake in it. This, in turn, fosters loyalty. It also is cost saving as your people are staying longer, so your recruitment costs are lower. Moreover, with loyal employees, you won’t have to spend additional time and money training new hires since people are less likely to leave in the first place.
Reduces Employee Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes, including your best employees. However, untrained workers make mistakes more often and with greater severity. This will cost your company time and money. At best, the work has to be repeated and you will waste resources. At worst, a substandard service or product might be delivered to your client and not only cost you time and money, but also your reputation. Through employee training programs, your people will be able to improve their skills and therefore be better at doing their jobs. With your employees making less mistakes, you will not need to spend as many resources, like time and money, in addressing these mistakes.
Increases Customer Satisfaction
Employee training is one of the best ways to indirectly impact business growth. How? It’s not just because your employees are better-trained and therefore more efficient and productive. It’s also because they’re more motivated and feel happier about their work. This positive outlook then translates to the way they interact with customers, especially those front-facing employees who directly interface with your clients. Better-served customers are happy, satisfied customers and are therefore more likely to stick around. Satisfied customers also help build a positive reputation.
If you ever doubt that investing in your employees result in happy and loyal clients, remember what British business magnate Richard Branson once said about the matter: “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”
Investing in your company isn’t all about tangible things like new equipment or acquiring a bigger office space. Investing in your company is also about the people who work for you. When you invest in making your people better, everyone and everything in the company also becomes better.