Are Your Employees Not Receiving Training at Work?
Employees not receiving training at work is a problem in many organisations. Some employers choose to hire someone new instead of investing in existing staff. We would suggest that in most cases, do this at your peril!
Of course, there are plenty of reasons why you might think it’s easier to manage out someone who isn’t performing. Or just replace them instead of upgrading their skillset. But this is a false economy so to speak.
Many companies think training is expensive and doesn’t fit into their budget. And yes, some training can indeed be expensive. Most businesses will be fairly aware of the costs involved.
The question businesses, particularly SMEs, should be asking themselves is this…
“Is the cost saved by not training employees on a regular basis greater than the cost of hiring someone completely new?”
By not providing training and failing to invest in your staff, consider yourself on a path riddled with some serious pitfalls that can be avoided.
The Cost of Not Receiving Training at Work
When employees are lacking competence, perhaps slower to uptake technological advancements in the business, or left to fend for themselves in unfamiliar scenarios a number of things can happen. And to be clear, the majority of them are negative.
It usually leads to staff who feel overwhelmed and lost in the shuffle. When they don’t receive proper training it can lead to inevitably poor use of resources. It can lead to time wasted on tasks, substandard service levels and client satisfaction. Not to mention colleague frustration.
Companies who understand that training is essential will also understand that it impacts employee retention, productivity, and revenue when you get to the bottom line. Investing in ongoing training programs and promotion practices is the way forward for many reasons.
Training Equals Happier Staff
Depending on what generation you’re in, the thought of staff training may have made you roll your eyes. Maybe you think oh well, it’s an away day. But if we take a closer look at the latest generations like Millennials and Generation Z, it becomes apparent from a study by PricewaterhouseCooper that training is a huge and influential factor.
In fact, 52% of Millennials listed opportunity for career progression as the number one characteristic in an organisation that would make them want to work for them. Number three? Excellent training and development programs with 35% of the responders making that claim.
What happens when progression stalls and an employee feels at a roadblock? That is when they are most likely to start looking elsewhere out of frustration. Training infers that the employee has value. Likewise, when recruiting for positions a business is also more likely to attract a higher calibre of talent when structured and robust training programmes are involved.
Recruiting New Staff is Costlier Than Training Current Staff
The numbers here will most certainly vary depending on the sector in question. But typically, recruiting someone new can cost up to 30% of that person’s salary.
Training costs for new hires are also more costly in terms of time and money. Not to mention getting that new hire fully integrated into the teams, departments, and culture. (Hopefully, you also understand the importance of a strong work culture! If not head over to our Fuel My Business App. Learn the reasons why in our course Culture as a Foundation for Growth, there is a free 7-day trial).
We should also mention here that in-between getting a new recruit up to speed, your existing staff will bear the brunt of the burden of the exiting employee’s workload. High turnover can create a slippery slope where frustrations build and more staff become motivated to leave too.
According to a report by Right Management, nearly 70% of businesses say that staff turnover has a negative financial impact.
Training Employees Effectively Offers Increased Productivity
This doesn’t sound like a surprising statement given the context. But consider that today’s contemporary training methods don’t necessarily mean conferences. They don’t have to be all-day events like they may have in the past.
Technology has changed the ways in which people can gather knowledge. And it can be delivered in smaller time packages, at the workplace, or remotely. There are various ways of learning online that can augment and support your SME without being disruptive to the business needs.
Empowering your employees and making them feel valued will increase engagement and improve work satisfaction. All of these will encourage and result in more productive uses of work time. Those end results affect your bottom line and customer satisfaction.
In another article from the Huffington Post, companies that invested £1500 on training per employee can see an average 24% increase in profit than companies that had employees who were not provided with training.
Final Thoughts
At Tricres, we have a policy of every employee learning a new skill each year. And it doesn’t even have to be necessarily work-related. That’s how much we believe in investing in ourselves and the need to keep growing as an individual.
On top of that, training is an ongoing process here. We never stop learning. With resident co-founder (and no joke, one-time part-time comedian) Nick Davies as an established and globally recognised trainer for all manner of learning and development (although he is quite fond of the professional services sector) we understand the power of training.
Does your SME think that training is a fluffy, frivolous aside once someone has been onboarded? We hope that this has provided some food for thought at the wider impact of not providing training.
Many consequences can result from ignoring this aspect of your business.
There is certainly true value in making your employees feel valued, empowered, and as productive and efficient as they possibly can.
