Why should one invest in employee training during hard economical times? As pointed out in our previous article on team building during a recession, Kenya is undergoing a recession and as a result several companies have cut down their training and team building budgets. However, we believe that investing in training and employee development during hard financial times is critical to the success of your organization’s future.
Here are our top ten reasons.
1. Stay ahead of competitors
Standing still can kill your business, make sure your staff are constantly advancing, learning and growing. Continuous training ensures that you are constantly moving forward and are competitive.
2. Fill in Skill Gaps and Overcome weaknesses
Regular training, identifies gaps skill gaps within your team and training helps close those gaps – helping your team function more effectively.
3. Advancing Employee Skills
Advancing your employees interpersonal and professional skills means adding value to an already existing skills set and ultimately improving their service delivery to your clients.
4. Reduce Stress
A trained workforce means that your staff are better equipped, more knowledgeable and less stressed and unsure about the known and unknown – a key factor in stress. And means that they are more confident about performing critical tasks.
5. Increase Job Satisfaction
Investment in your employees shows that you care, and develops a higher sense of job satisfaction, and motivation. This in turn reduces employee turnover and increases productivity, eventually increasing company profitability.
6. Support succession planning
Increasing your talent pool of available, experienced and capable employees helps when it is time to fill in senior roles as they become available. Growing leaders who have understood and bought into your culture is always a better option than hiring from outside your organization.
7. Increase employee value
Training allows you to “Up-skill” or “Multi-skill” your employees. Up-skilling involves extending an employee’s knowledge of an existing skill. While Multi-skilling is the process of training employees in new or related work areas to increase their usability within the organization.
8. Reduce turnover rates.
Investing in the development of your employees can reduce attrition rates. Well-planned training can provide career pathways for employees improving an organizations retention. Rather than seeing them seeking next-level opportunities elsewhere, employees can clearly see the value of their training today in preparing for tomorrow’s new potential roles.
9. Enhance operational efficiency.
Training helps enable your employees to increase their efficiency and productivity in completing their daily work tasks.
10. Exceed industry standards.
Training your employees in “industry-standard best practices” could also assist you in building your reputation, giving your competitors a run for their money!
11. Bonus – financial and business performance
A well-oiled and equipped staff team will always achieve greater results in the long run. Hitting your learning and growth goals will influence your internal processes and customer goals, making it easier to meet your financial goals and targets.
12. Bonus – Employer Branding
An organization that is well known for up-skilling, multi-skilling and picking leaders from within their business will automatically have great employer branding. People want to work for organization that not only challenge them to improve but give several opportunities and platforms to do so.
