Learning at Work Week(May 17 - May 23) promotes a culture of learning and curiosity, with a view to increasing the desire to upskill and take up training opportunities.
At MERJE, we believe that offering additional training and development pathways can be the key to commercial success for many reasons, some of which we’ve delved into here.
Better employee performance
An employee who receives well-structured training is more likely to be able to perform well in their job. This type of training will give the employee a greater understanding of their duties and responsibilities within their role, which will build their confidence and resilience. It can also go on to enhance their overall performance, which then benefits the wider organisation. Employees who are well-versed around changing industry standards help businesses to hold a firm stance as both a leader and strong contender within their sector.
Boosts satisfaction and morale
If a company invests in training, it means that employees will feel valued, supported and respected. It may also result in employees becoming privy to training they wouldn’t have otherwise known about or looked for themselves. Employees who feel appreciated and empowered through training opportunities may feel more satisfaction toward their jobs, which will have the added bonus of improving productivity.
Tackles weaknesses
Nobody is perfect and the majority of employees will have some sort of weakness within their workplace skill-set. A personalised training program enables individuals to strengthen and hone the skills they need to work on. A development program also helps to align employees’ skills and knowledge across the business.
Assessing skills gaps is important in order to identify employees who rely heavily on others to complete more basic tasks. This can take those more adept workers away from their day-to-day responsibilities and decreases productivity throughout the team. Providing training fosters universal knowledge, meaning you can rely on every member of your team to complete the fundamental requirements of their role without constant help and supervision from others.
Creates consistency
A robust training program ensures that employees have a consistent company experience and are fully aware of a company’s expectations when it comes to achieving goals and driving performance. The first step to realising business goals is ensuring your team is aware of them and understands how their work helps in accomplishing them.
Increases efficiency
Productivity tends to improve when a company implements training courses. Increased efficiency will ensure that projects are completed successfully and to a high level. This, in turn, can assist in improving company turnover and potential market share.
Leads to better strategies
Ongoing training and upskilling of the workforce, particularly around new sector developments and innovations, fosters creativity. New ideas formed as a direct result of training can then go on to be commercially profitable.
Higher retention rates
Staff are more likely to feel loyal to an organisation if they are invested in and this means they will be inclined to stay for the long-term. Training is a great way to bolster staff retention rates while ensuring people don’t leave, resulting in costly recruitment, onboarding and training processes having to start all over again.
Enhances company reputation
Implementing a good training strategy helps to grow an employer brand and makes a company become a more tempting consideration for job seekers, especially those who are motivated by progression and development opportunities such as graduates and those looking for a career change.
In summary
Training can be delivered in many different ways, including mentoring schemes, on-the-job learning, in-house training, paid for professional qualifications and individual study time.
It presents a key opportunity to expand the knowledge base of all employees, ensuring that they are kept motivated and up-to-date with new processes and practices, which can then help businesses to optimise work outputs and increase their bottom line.
This is why it is vital to offer employees the chance to seek out fresh challenges and learn new skills, to support them in achieving their career ambitions which will ultimately benefit your business in the long-term.
If you would like to discuss this or any of the topics covered in our articles, please get in touch with the MERJE team:info@merje.com
