Is Employee Training Just Another Expense?
If you are either an owner or a manager and feel that employee training is just another expense or even worse, nuisance, that you just need to push out for the sake of it. then you are not familiar with benefits that can be achieved with it.
Most often, companies and managers working within them come to this realization only when they face a volatile or high growth environment.
Without regular employee training programs that are in line with modern needs, organizations often fall woefully short of meeting their intended targets.
In today’s cut throat industry, firms are regularly seen making a dash in order to attract the right kind of talent, especially when they are in need of filling an urgent position for which they have a sudden requirement.
For e.g. A firm that till now managed it data infrastructure on its own premises needs to make a shift to the cloud as they are facing an influx of data that can’t be managed through the existing infrastructure. The firm will now look for a person who is proficient with managing the migration skillfully and without any snags. It might even succeed in getting someone exception to come on board for the task, but is this strategy worthwhile?
Not quite and that’s because a new employee takes at least eight months in a new job to reach optimum productivity as found by a credible survey. This is a very long time frame and the requirement to perform is urgent creating a mismatch that could cost the firm quite highly.
If training for existing employees as well as new ones are in place.Then the firm could fill in such role requirements from within existing resources as well as lowering the expectations on new hires.
It can be beneficial for firms
Treating training as an investment leads to tangible benefits that translate directly towards positively affecting the firm’s bottom line. Most of Fortune 500 firms have extensive training and employee development plans in place just because they recognize its importance.
If you are still unsure on whether training is just another expense or an investment that will definitely pay off in the future, you need to go through these benefits that accrue from modern training programs in order to clear things off:
Fast Tracked Productivity:
When tasked with new opportunities or tools, employees often face an incredible amount of difficulty in learning things
If left on their own. On the other hand, another dilemma an employee faces during this situation is lack of clarity on what actually is required from it in terms of responsibilities the employee should be shouldering.
A quality training program that addresses all such ends will allow the employee to end the skills gap it has along with making it clear to him as to what exactly is required.
On top of this, gaining these skills and clarity instills confidence in the employee with regards to its role, thereby motivating him to perform at a much more optimal manner that was otherwise possible.
In today’s world, making this happen has become a whole lot easier with the introduction of training tools like Learning Management Systems and AI powered Learning experience platforms.
The employee can acquire an optimal learning path that caters to its needs perfectly and the ability to access the courses through any device makes learning more accessible.
Counters The “Actively Disengaged Culture”:
When employees have been on the job for a very long period and haven’t experienced much in terms of role or skills growth, they can become disengaged.
which can lead to directly lowered business results.
Most organizations operating nowadays face this conundrum on a consistent basis. A whopping 66% of employees were found to be disengaged with their current jobs. However organizations as noted in a wide ranging survey by Gallup.
But don’t think that training of any form could help you fight this issue just yet. Conventional training formats that rely on fixed schedules. The trainers and boring, elongated lectures does little to counter employee disengagement at any level.
Modern training techniques that offer self-paced, customized training programs powered by AI based technologies have been known to drive a high interest rate among learners.
That’s because, instead of forcing the learning on them, the modules acquiesce and adapt to the person’s learning standards, needs,expectations and prepares lessons based on the individual’s own learning graph.
The employee who finds itself learning through such high-ended tools will likely learn more. An employee can be able to apply those concepts to actual real life work scenarios.
Once this happens, the results from the new techniques soon follow.
providing the employee with an increased level of confidence in its own abilities, thereby enhancing its engagement with the job and the firm simultaneously
Sustainable Profitability:
High employee turnover rates can seriously undermine your efforts to scale the firm’s growth.
Employees that don’t see their growth or learning in a company are 12 times as likely to leave the organization,That is where when an employee leaves the firm
It costs the firm almost twice the amount in terms of lost productivity as compared to the employee’s own earnings.
A consistent and workable training program is sure to stop this flow and make employees stick to their jobs for longer periods.
Including when they are armed with newer, better skill sets gained through the training.
The mistakes they commit will fall down to incredible levels and work performance levels improve tremendously as well.
Employees that are engaged with their jobs are 21% more profitable than those who are not.
These facts show that training is not an expense but an incredibly critical business activity that matters highly to the firm’s growth.
If your firm is not engaged in an active training program, you need to ensure that one starts on an urgent basis so that you can start reaping the rewards the come through its implementation.
