“What if we train them and they leave”
“What if we don’t train them and they stay”
Richard Branson: “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to”
Peter Honey: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”
1. Increase productivity
If your employees know what they’re doing and are properly trained, productivity will increase. The manufacturing industries have caught on to this gem a long time ago. The most successful businesses train their staff to achieve improved quality, provide better service, reduced low payoff activities and ultimately make more profit.
2. Reduce employee turnover
Investing in your employees will let them know you are interested in developing their skills. As a result they tend to stay longer and contribute more to your business. Recruiting replacement staff is expensive, time consuming and risky. It’s much better to train and retain your best people in the first place. Technical, management and administrative training courses can be as good a pay rise during difficult times.
3. Decrease need for supervision
Untrained and under-qualified staff can drain your management resources and distract your best people from urgent and important tasks. How many times have your Managers said that they can’t do something because they are still “keeping an eye” on an employee? Free up managers time and effort by training employees to do the work themselves. Avoid becoming over reliant on one person by training at least one other alternative member of your team to an acceptable level that suits your business.
4. Increase ability to employ new technologies
Keeping up to date with technology is essential. Ensuring that your employees are current with technology will not only enable them to do their job better but also ensures that your Company is at the forefront when it comes to the competition. Evidence of training in the use of new technology is an excellent way to differentiate your business from the others.
5. Increase safety to decrease work-related injury/illness
Training in health and safety will reduce the amount of work based injuries which occur. This protects not only the employee, but also the employer when it comes to possible litigation.
Let your insurance broker know that you have evidence of accredited WH&S training. This will help the broker negotiate a better quotation with underwriters on your behalf.
6. Maintain employee credentials/certifications
Maintaining qualifications and credentials is cheaper than allowing them to expire and starting again. Ensure that the hard won qualifications of your employees remain up to date with regular training.
7. Help employees meet new responsibilities
Australian WHS legislation says that the employer MUST provide a safe workplace. Who would allow a 17 year old to operate machinery or drive a car for that matter without any instruction? Then why do some Companies promote employees to new positions without giving them the necessary skills to perform their new role effectively? Training for newly promoted employees is beneficial to both the Company in a legal sense and the employee in terms of productivity, effectiveness and efficiency.
8. Increase job satisfaction, morale and motivation among employees
A happy workforce is a productive workforce. Training increases the wellbeing of employees and reduces absenteeism, mistakes and stress in the workplace – always beneficial for the culture of a Company.
9. Enhance company image
PR, reputation and company perception is becoming increasingly important in modern business. Making your training culture transparent can be prestigious in terms of promoting the Company and ensuring that people would like to work for, and with the organisation.
10. Improve risk management, e.g., training about WHS, sexual harassment, diversity training, best practice etc
Training in essential areas will reduce the risks associated with employing people and potential Employment Tribunal claims. Remember, the average cost of just defending a Tribunal claim can be very expensive and can potentially cripple a smaller business.