Employee training is a vital part of human resource development. Human resource practices play a key role in attracting, motivating, rewarding, and retaining employees. The overall goal of employee training and development focuses on learning. Learning means the practice of employees gaining knowledge, skills, competencies, or behaviors.
Certainly, today, merely offering to invest in employees’ training programs is not enough to establish the credibility of the training and development function to managers and employees.
When you hire a new employee, your employee training and development plan ensures that your training process produces the best results.
But what exactly should you include in an employee training program? How much time and care are you investing in your employees? The success of your business is built upon the success of your team members. In this article, we will talk about the importance of investing in employees, and how to improve your training and development of employee programs.
So discover how investing in employees can create more growth for your company!
What is Employee Training and Development?
Employee training involves a short-term process where an employee of an organization gets trained to develop their skills and potential. In simple terms, employee training refers to an organized and planned activity to educate the workforce on their work-related knowledge and skills. As a matter of fact, such training programs are an ongoing undertaking that companies engage in with both new and existing employees.
All the employees have untapped potential that is waiting to be unleashed. Employee training and development programs can help in discovering activities that will have a high impact on the performance of the organization. The main aim of training an employee includes improving the effectiveness of an individual for a company. It’s the progress that helps organizations achieve long-term employee goals effectively. Investing in training employees for a better future is a new imperative.
Consequently, it’s proven that companies that invest in their employees received greater ROI. Furthermore, investing in employees pays off by improving the performance and productivity of employees which has a direct and positive impact on business results. It challenges employees to grow and improve.
Above all, employees who do not receive training and development may become resistant to change and become stagnant. Hence, this can really harm performance since technology is driving so many changes in the work method.
While traditional physical classroom-based training is still used by some companies, of late, many have switched to online training. This is because web-based employee training offers flexibility, scalability, and personalization that we don’t find in the conventional method.
Importance of Investing in Employees
Employee training and development programs can contribute to companies’ competitiveness. Competitiveness refers to a company’s ability to maintain and gain market share in an industry. Companies that invest in their employees are experiencing great change due to new technology, rapid knowledge development, globalization of business, and the development of eCommerce.
Team members, who receive staff training and development as well as encouragement tend to approach tier work feeling confident, prepared, and ready to take on new challenges. In addition, they feel valued by you, and in return, they are motivated to perform well for you.
Where regular training programs for employees are important to upgrade their skills, and knowledge and give them job satisfaction. On the other side, customized employee training courses are available to help organizations and employees in skill enhancement and better productivity. Know what are the reasons to conduct employee training and its benefits.
In the end, we can say that employee training and development are not a luxury. It’s a necessity if companies are to participate in global and electronic marketplaces by offering high-quality products and services.
Benefits of Investing in Employees Pays Off
When you take an interest in your staff, it shows them that you care about their well-being. Give crew members the opportunities to advance, encourage them to reach their full potential, and contribute at full capacity. It’s always great when companies can promote from within.
Investing in employees pays off for them to become better at their responsibilities and overcome their potential gaps. The importance of investing in employees isn’t only advantageous to those being trained but also benefits the organization in many ways. Let’s dive deep into the benefits of investing in employees. Let’s find out.
Competency
One of the key benefits of employee training and development includes a boost of self-confidence and self-esteem. When people feel they are better equipped to tackle new tasks and use more of their abilities, they feel more confident.
People with higher self-confidence and self-esteem take more risks, make more decisions and solve problems on their own. This leads to the greater initiative and thus, saves the manager time to focus on growth and improvement opportunities.
Higher Employee Retention
Another importance of investing in employees pays off is to improve the retention rate of employees. Lack of growth opportunities includes one of the biggest reasons why more than 50% of employees want to switch their jobs. As a result, investing in employees pays off by improving employee satisfaction while reducing the employee turnover rate.
Hence, this results in developing a healthy workspace and prevents the loss of talent. A report by LinkedIn found that 93% of workers are more likely to remain engaged in companies that invest in their employees in terms of staff training and development.
Investing in Employees Improves Employee Engagement
Companies that invest in their employees feel increased employee engagement than ever before. This is because when you invest in your employees, it makes them more motivated toward their work.
No doubt, more skills help to improve both the quantity and quality of the work process. A study by Udemy reveals that 80% of employees felt they would be more engaged with the organization if they offer staff training and development programs to develop new skills. The study also shows that its 2.5 times higher the possibility that disengaged workers would like to quit their job more quickly.
Increased Productivity
Good employee performance is directly proportional to higher organizational productivity. Investing in employee engagement helps organizations to create a more productive workplace. It also helps managers to spend less of their time with new hires and operational supervisors.
When employees don’t question their abilities, managers don’t have to micromanage the teams. Hence, employee training and development can result in increased profitability and a healthy work environment.
Cost-Effective & Collaborative
The importance of investing in employees pays off by being a cost-effective and collaborative solution. Subsequently, employee turnover rates are costly enough to ruin your budget not only in terms of money but also in terms of productivity.
Investing in employee engagement prepares employees to use new technologies, function in new work systems such as virtual teams, and communicate and cooperate with different customers. It costs a company around 6 to 9 months of employees’ salaries to replace them. That’s about $45,000 to replace an employee working for $60,000.
Employee Satisfaction
When an organization invests in employee training and development, it makes the employees think that they care for them and value their existence. This way your satisfied employees are more likely to spread positive word of mouth which might attract other talents to work with your company. Moreover, providing them with the right skill sets offers a great way to cultivate a sense of loyalty.
Reduced Risk
Even a small workplace accident, miscommunication, or even a small inconvenience in the process can make the organization pay a big price. Trained employees make fewer mistakes than those who lack the proper skills required to complete the tasks. Therefore, companies that invest in their employees help to improve efficiency while reducing the possibility of errors.
Risk of Failing to Invest in Employee Training
Failing to invest in employee training and development might give your organization a lot of hidden costs that you might not even think of. It not only harms the potential of employees but also the evolution of the organization itself. Here are some of the major drawbacks you might face if you don’t invest in your employees’ training and development.
- Poor performance: Employees who don’t receive proper staff training and development have lower performance standards as compared to a trained employee.
- Lack of employee development: If you don’t invest in your employees’ skill set, they will never develop their abilities to upgrade their target. Hence, you might end up spending more money to attract top talent with the updated skill set while your present team stagnates.
- Diminished market standards: Certainly, the failure to invest in employee training and development leads to the limited scope of updated industry relevance. Employees with updated skill sets and industry knowledge know appropriate ways to keep the organization on the edge of market trends.
Types of Staff Training and Development Based on Different Stages
The market has so many methods to categorize different types of employee training and development programs. With so many employee training and development programs available, organizations are eager to invest in the right type of employee training.
Based on their journey you can find out what areas they need employee training and development. If you too are confused about how to train your employees effectively, then you need to consider the following classifications:
A. Orientation
This type of pre-onboarding employee training introduces new employees to companies culture, mission, vision, and values in brief. Here, the motive is to cover all the important information that needs to be covered before the employee gets ready to enter the organization.
For instance, topics such as organizational policies, procedures, and norms. This provides them with a sense of connection and helps them feel confident to join the organization.
B. Employee training at the time of onboarding
After the orientation, every employee needs some guidance to understand the basics of their job role. This is called employee training at the time of onboarding. It’s a critical part where the employees get familiarized with their day-to-day roles and responsibilities. Here, they will be trained in all the basic skills and tools they need to complete their targets.
Popular examples of conducting onboarding employee training include:
One of the most popular ways to invest in employee training includes one-on-one mentorship from a manager or experienced employees. A dedicated guide is assigned to the train throughout their particular learning phase. Their experience and knowledge can help to quickly adapt to new changes. Furthermore, this way they will feel more confident to ask their queries instantly while learning from their seniors.
Hands-on staff training and development or apprenticeship offers a popular method to train new joiners at the onboarding stage. Here the employees shadow the managers or other teammates to grab the required skill sets effectively. It enables new employees to learn through experiences.
C. Workplace experience
Based on the experience an employee has gained, you have to train them with the appropriate amount of hard and soft skills required for the particular tasks. A certain amount of workplace employee training is mandatory for every organization to train new employees.
Hard skills benefit employees to perform the process in a better way. Meanwhile, soft skills benefit the organization to bring the best out of the employee by making them valuable addition to the environment.
Below we have highlighted popular ways of conducting workplace employee training:
Put simply, hard skills refer to the core skills one needs to perform their job efficiently. From digital capabilities and using the tools and applications effectively to training them in different development domains like analysis and management. Definitely, it’s one of the most important parts of investing in employee engagement.
As mentioned above, the non-technical but important skills to improve employees’ performance includes soft skills. It basically, helps them to improve their communication and collaboration skills to interact in a better way with customers. In simple terms, these skills focus more on the behavior and nature of the candidate rather than the technical aspect.
Recently, many organizations have realized the importance of investing in employees’ soft skills. Some popular examples of soft skills include communication skills, emotional intelligence, and many more. In fact, we can say that many have begun to value soft skills more than any other skills in employees. Many studies have stated that the presence of these skills helps employees to improve their performance and learning ability.
This type of employee training and development focuses on eliminating any sort of bias from the organization. It aims to create a more inclusive workplace and create a better working environment for employees. Here the managers and HRs are trained in attitudinal change so that they make more unbiased decisions.
This type of staff training and development teaches employees about appropriate behavior to maintain in a workplace. It focuses on the right implementation of company policies and resources that everyone should be aware of. By invest in employee training for anti-harassment helps organizations to conduct processes smoothly while taking care of their employees.
D- Targeted employee training for succession plans
A better role comes with greater responsibilities. After some time as the employee moves up the hierarchy ladder, the importance of investing in employees with basic skills (For instance, leadership skills or strategizing) to manage such roles rises. However, not all employees need to be couched. This totally depends on your succession planning blueprint.
Popular ways of conducting targeted employee training include
This method of investing in employees helps non-executive employees to learn the roles and responsibilities of their new role in the organization. The motive to invest in employee training for leadership includes making them better decision-makers to manage tasks effectively.
This kind of employee training method focuses on senior leaders or executives to learn some missing skills and knowledge to improve their performance. To be precise, here leaders work on some additional skills to enhance their role.
E. Reskilling
As the working population gets older, the importance of investing in employees to continuously train and develop their employees to keep them flexible and creative rises too. This will allow the organization to meet its growth objectives and retain skilled talent.
In addition, your team needs a refresh of their skill sets at regular intervals of time. Reskilling sessions really help them to keep updated with the ongoing trends and helps to come up with innovative ideas. Moreover, you can also train them with all the emerging tools that can improve their work with time.
Top Trends to Invest in Your Employees
Companies that invest in their employees have witnessed several staff training and development trends in the past few years. Various stats have indicated the future evolution of employee training in the coming years. Below we have discussed some of the major trends to invest in your employees that have hijacked the market.
Lecture sessions
This type of staff training and development allows organizations to train a large group at once. Whether it’s a physical lecture or virtual lecture, through this method employees have the access to interact effectively.
E-learning
The technology revolution continues to become the biggest trend to influence the modern workplace and training methods. Self-driven e-learning refers to the model where learning materials are provided either on an LMS (learning management system), or a MOOC.
It’s one of the most convenient methods of staff training and development where candidates can schedule their classes at their suitable hours. Certification courses act as a great way to invest in employee training e-learning programs that any employee can participate in and enhance their employability.
Roleplay
Before the modernization in staff training and development was introduced, role play provided a very effective method to disseminate soft skills among employees.
Today in the digital era, the introduction of AR and VR has taken place to make role plays more accessible. In the end, the main motive of such scenarios includes making the candidates more observant.
Customer service training
Here the employees are trained with the skills and knowledge to provide customers with exceptional service. Usually, it includes programs related to appreciating employee behavior, service strategies, and service system knowledge.
Customer education training
Here the employees are trained to teach customers about how to use their products or services. The motive behind this method is to ease their customer’s experience.
Each of these methods of investing in employees pays off with its own advantages and disadvantages that companies face. The ideal choice of employee training types and tools totally depends on the needs of the organization.
However, an organization has always an option to indulge with one than one method to invest in employee training. In the end, apart from these varieties of training methods to choose from, there are some best measures to help your staff training and development move in the right direction.
How to Invest in Employee Engagement? – The Best Practices
With so many benefits available, by now you must have realized that investing in employees pays off. Although it’s an important process, it can be a little complex also. Therefore, you need to follow certain guidelines to effectively plan to invest in employee training tasks.
To improve staff training and development there are things you need to do. This will make sure you achieve the desired results from the employee training program.
1. Identify your goals before you invest in your employees
The first thing you need to concentrate on after deciding to invest in your employees includes recognizing the ultimate goals that motivated you to begin the employee training program. Taking a proactive approach to staff training and development is best done by setting goals for the organization or department. This will help you to determine where the current skill levels of employees may be challenged towards achieving these goals. Thus you can develop an employee training plan for the department effectively.
Ultimately, the major objective of such employee training programs includes helping you to achieve these goals. To clarify, here you can look for the improvements that you need to make that will benefit the organization to achieve its goals. Above all, investing in employee engagement enables the organization to fix the issues that might be holding the employees back from their ultimate potential.
2. Determine your competencies
Just like recognizing your goals, you must determine your competencies before investing in employee engagement plans as well. In simple terms, competencies include the required skill set that the employee needs to improve their performance. Start by figuring out the strengths and skills that your team already has and what needs to be there.
3. Analyze the skill gap
Once, you have figured out your goals and competencies that you need to achieve. It helps you to give an idea about the level you are currently at. Analyze this gap and take appropriate steps to fill it by investing in employee engagement.
4. Consult your employees
Keep in mind to take input from whom you are designing the employee training program. It’s advisable to seek employees’ opinions and views on the plan to enrich the training experience.
Since they are the ones who are attending the session, taking feedback from them will help you to improve things that you might have overlooked. In the end, it’s the employees for whom the entire initiative takes place.
5. Invest in your employees with the right training method and tools
Another step while investing in employee engagement includes finding the right method and right tool for your organization. As mentioned earlier also, it totally depends on the needs of the organization and the comfort of the employees.
Certainly, investing in employees pays off when you utilize the right tools with the right method. Above we have provided a number of types and trends of employee training programs that you can consider. However, one always has the option of blended training which simply means combining two or more different methods to get the most out of the program for your employees and organization.
6. Get professional help
Another best practice to effectively invest in employee training includes bringing in a professional trainer. It’s never wrong to hire some professional help to train your employees.
This can benefit them to gain the next level of experience that they might not be able to grab within the internal sources. Experts bring out the importance of investing in employees training. They help to provide new skills and information to your organization while others can only concentrate on their tasks.
7. Invest in employee training by encouraging self-motivated employees
The entire employee training program can only be successful if the employees themselves feel motivated to learn new things. Motivate your team to learn new things on their own too.
In addition, self-motivated employees help the organization bring in innovative ideas. Above all, it might also motivate other employees to learn new things and exercise them in them to improve the process too.
Quick Ways to Make your Employee Training and Development More Effective
No doubt these tips work for almost every type of staff training and development program. Let’s have a look at it.
1. Avoid Taking Shortcuts
You should not rush the employee training process to meet the deadlines all the time. Always remember that you are investing in employee engagement to train them with the specific skills they need to complete the process effectively.
Cutting short the process degrades the importance of investing in employees. This not only results in half-skilled employees but also in some costly errors in the system. In fact, you should provide some separate sessions or classes for those falling behind. An employee training program should always be complete with providing completed skills and knowledge to the employees.
Suitable methods to invest in your employees in this scenario includes utilizing one on one training, or mentorship to provide a personalized and flexible experience.
2. Take Primitive Measures to Face the Forgetting Curve
Investing in employee engagement not only means conducting some training programs and your duty is over. Your duty doesn’t end here. You must take primitive measures to put the knowledge gained to real-world use.
To ensure that you are gaining a valuable ROI on staff training and development, you need to account something for the forgetting curve of that learning program. In simple terms, the forgetting curve means the possibility of losing out on the knowledge obtained via a training program.
According to a study, knowledge retention goes down to 58%, just after a period of 20 minutes. After a day gap, the rate goes down to 34%, and after 30 days it even comes down to 20%.
The curve might get steeper on the basis of the complexity of the job role. To overcome this issue, managers can utilize the methods of simulation to train them under real-world scenarios.
3. Personalized and Flexible Learning Experience
Every person has their own capabilities to grab different skills. When it comes to training, expecting everybody to arrive on the same page in terms of the ability to learn is not possible. Here, an advisable approach would be offering a more personalized and flexible learning experience.
To do that, the staff training and development program can be divided into different segments. One where all the basic knowledge and introductions are provided to all the participants. Meanwhile, the other module can offer a more personalized way for enrolled employees facing difficulties in specific modules. This way everyone lands on the same page without falling behind anyone.
Furthermore, you can also collaborate with experts and specialists to provide employees with a highly professional and personalized experience.
4. Feedback is the Key
You should focus on collecting feedback from employees at regular intervals on their learning journey. This can help you understand the trainee’s sentiments in a better way while refining the inefficiencies of past sessions.
For instance, on their send day, you can ask them for the reviews of their instructor. After one week, you can collect feedback by testing their knowledge retention and see if they require any specific course module or not.
Once the program is completed, you can even provide them with a detailed questionnaire form covering different segments of training.
5. Communication
Poor communication during the staff training and development process adversely affects the employee’s ability to bring out their full potential. Certainly, one of the most useful strategies to invest in your employees includes recognizing employees’ expectations and removing the communication gap.
To share knowledge and experience with employees, it’s really important for both parties to be on the same page. You should provide equal opportunity to employees to clarify their confusion to gain maximum input from the session.
6. Incentive
One of the best methods to invest in your employee engagement includes providing them incentives. You can make the entire training session fun by including healthy competitions, gamify the training sessions, and offering gift cards on the completion of a course. Some companies that invest in their employees even provide their employees paid time off to attend training.
Leading Companies that Invested in their Employees
Companies that invest in their employees have realized the importance of developing the right-suited framework suited for their needs. Below, we have highlighted some leading examples of companies that invest in their employees effectively. You can check their strategies and training programs to effectively invest in your employees’ training.
- Google’s G2G Network- Googler to googler method refers to the effective method of the organization where employees mentor each other. Here they help themselves in a variety of areas covering from designing to negotiation skills. It’s a totally voluntary program where employees are encouraged to participate and contribute to the culture of learning.
- Amazon’s 95% subscription – One of the leading eCommerce companies that invest in their employees includes Amazon. It offers intensive long training courses to its employees prior to hire. In addition, it encourages them to take multiple courses in their fields by paying almost 95% of the subscription for them.
- IBM’s Your Learning- IBM uses employee demographic data to make personalized employee learning sessions. The increased utilization of AI technology helps employees to grab the right skills at the right time. Furthermore, the system of credentialing makes the certification process super convenient to transfer.
Start investing in Employee Engagement
As a business owner, one of your responsibilities is to attract and retain top talents. Although investing in employee engagement may require some resources, having a well-trained team will save you money and make you profitable in the longer run. A program for staff training and development benefits both you and your staff.
Investing in your employees is not just a smart business. It’s essential. When you have the right strategies for employee growth, the whole company benefits.
Conclusively, we can say that it doesn’t matter how much time and effort you put into your hiring process. Rather it is more important to train your employees on a regular basis to make your organization a success. It’s simply an investment of some money, time, and effort, but it’s definitely gonna give you a lot in return.
In this article, we have highlighted the benefits, methods, top trends, and effective measures to make the whole investment work on the positive side. Implementing any of these can help you to enjoy real profitable returns in the long run. However, if you have any confusion related to the topic feel free to contact us.
