Why Investing in Training Is So Important

Employers can spend thousands of dollars investing in training employees . Knowing how much those initial training expenses are, you can be reluctant to explore further learning opportunities. The more training your team does, the more money you must spend. However, you often have to spend money to make money. What’s more, employee training and development can sometimes provide some of these desirable benefits:

Risk Mitigation

No matter your industry, you might be able to reduce some of the most significant risks in your business by investing in employee training. For example, heavy transport business owners prioritizing chain of responsibility training may reduce the risk of chain of responsibility breaches and possibly even legal consequences.

The same goes for industries with employees using heavy equipment and power tools. You might reduce on-site health and safety risks when your team knows how to use equipment safely.

Improved Employee Happiness

Many factors can contribute to employee happiness. Among the most common are recognition, a team environment, benefits, and work-life balance. However, learning and development opportunities can also often play a part.

When you offer training opportunities, you’re letting your team know you value their roles. Employees can also feel like you appreciate them enough to enhance their skills and help them succeed.

While learning and development can be costly, it can often pay for itself with time. Your newly upskilled employees can use their skills in your business, potentially contributing to increased productivity and profit.

Current studies reaffirm the importance of learning and development opportunities in business. Approximately 76% of surveyed employees would stay with a company that is continuously investing in training. At least 67% of HR managers are answering the call by increasing their learning and development budgets.

Picture: Jason Goodman

Improved Work Quality

All business owners want their employees to do an excellent job of whatever they’re hired to do. High-quality work means happy customers. Satisfied customers mean repeat business and more profit.

However, most businesses can’t hope to see quality improvements if they don’t provide training opportunities. If employees aren’t equipped to undertake their work in a better way, work quality can remain the same.

Reduced Turnover

Investing in training opportunities might have a positive impact on your turnover rates. According to the National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA), over half of all survey respondents said they would leave a company without education and training opportunities. Providing those opportunities might mean you secure loyal employees who value your company enough to stay.

Increased Productivity

You likely rely on your long-term employees to show new employees how to perform their jobs. After all, if they’ve been in their positions for a long time, they’ll be more than capable of showing others how to do them.

However, how your current employees perform their everyday tasks might not be the most productive or efficient. They’ve simply relied on employees before them to show them how to do them. It can be a vicious cycle.

As a result, it can often be in your best interest to prioritize official training for new roles to ensure specific tasks are performed in the most effective ways. With a great foundation to work from, they can train new employees in that same way in the future.

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Poorly trained employees don’t always know how to provide excellent customer service. They might not have any de-escalation strategies to rely on or know how to listen to customers. Some even struggle to communicate effectively to make their customers feel valued. Even the basics, like positive attitudes and empathy, aren’t guaranteed.

While your employees might not have these skills initially, that doesn’t mean they can’t learn them. Prioritizing customer service training for a front-line team might mean your customers enjoy a far more satisfying experience in your business.

More Innovation Opportunities

How you run your business today might have been more than sufficient for many years. There’s nothing to say that your customers aren’t satisfied and that your employees aren’t happy. However, innovation drives growth. Innovation can be vital to future-proof your business and see it survive market shifts and trends.

Often, innovation comes through training. Training can stimulate innovative thinking and help employees be exposed to new ideas. Suddenly, they can be better positioned to view their everyday tasks with a fresh perspective. That fresh perspective might then allow for positive business changes that enhance your business more than you thought possible.

A Competitive Advantage

No matter your industry, you’re bound to have competition. Often, that competition is businesses offering the same products and services as you. You’re all fighting for the market share.

Getting a competitive advantage over other businesses can be tricky. This is especially true when you’ve exhausted all possible expansion opportunities. That’s where training comes in. Your competitive advantage might relate to how skilled, experienced, and innovative your employees are. It can also involve customer service and after-sales support.

Pay attention to how your competition runs their business and note their weaknesses. You might welcome new customers if you can turn your competitors’ weaknesses into your strengths through investing in training.

Improved Online Safety

Data breaches and leaks in the United States affect millions of people annually. Thousands of businesses also experience complete data loss. Cybersecurity training in your workplace likely won’t prevent all cyberattacks. However, there’s potential for it to reduce the likelihood.

Through cyber safety training, your employees can learn what digital threats are and what they look like. If they can identify them, they can be better positioned to avoid them. As a result, they might be less likely to put your business at risk of cyber intrusions.

A Stronger Workforce

Your business is only as good as the team behind the scenes. The more skilled they are, the more satisfied your customers can be with their experience. You might also find that a highly skilled workforce means you don’t have to shop elsewhere for talent. Instead, you can prioritize in-house promotions and enjoy better retention rates.

As costly as training can sometimes be, it is often more expensive not to prioritize it. By exploring learning opportunities for your employees today, you might enjoy a range of these benefits above.