Employers go through a long and complicated recruiting process to hire qualified candidates. Unfortunately, their effort usually stops there. 

Once they accept the job offer, your employees expect you to provide them with the right career advancement opportunities. Consistent and dedicated employee training enhances employees’ engagement, builds trust with them, and maximizes your financial performance.

Here is how employee training and development benefits your organization.

Employee Retention

Employee turnover includes a wide range of direct and indirect expenses, such as employee onboarding, training, and poor team productivity. It can cost 1.5-2 times an employee’s annual salary. However, 64% of companies say that retaining employees is harder than hiring them.

So, why do your employees leave you?

While most employers believe that their staff members hop jobs because they want more money, that is not true. The research study on disengaged employees found that only 12% of them leave their workplaces for higher salaries. 

On the other hand, almost half of them consider career advancement a critical employee satisfaction factor. Training and development programs help you establish a sense of value within the organization. Therefore, employees that do not achieve the desired professional goal are 12 times more likely to leave their employer.

Unfortunately, few employers understand the importance of professional development. According to the report mentioned above, only 29% of employees are happy with their company’s career advancement initiatives.

Hiring Top Talent

Today, to set your company apart from your competitors and hire top talent, you need to build a consistent employer branding strategy. Once you position your company as an excellent place to work and grow professionally, you will expand your access to the talent pool and attract high-caliber job seekers. 

Providing staff with a wide range of training and development programs helps you build your employer brand internally. Encourage your employees to share their experiences with your brand. For example, tell their career development stories on your website or social networks or ask them to write testimonials. Ask them to take photos and videos during your training programs and share them online, along with your dedicated hashtag. 

Above all, use business review platforms, local business registries, social networks, job postings, digital ads, and your website to explain what kind of employee training and development programs you offer and how they benefit your staff.  

The benefits of this approach are multiple, from hiring top talent to reducing the cost of recruitment. Once top candidates start reaching out to you, you will not need to spend a fortune on digital adverting. 

Enhancing Workplace Engagement

Did you know that 85% of employees are not engaged in the workplace? Employee engagement is not all about high workplace performance and productivity. Most importantly, it is not synonymous with employee satisfaction. 

Employee engagement is also your staff members’ emotional connection with your business. It drives employees’ happiness, ensures you share the same goals, and makes them committed to achieving the company’s missions. In other words, to be productive and stay loyal to your company, employees first need to care about it. 

Providing them with training and development shows appreciation and brings stability in employees’ careers. By undergoing continuous training and being rewarded for their accomplishments, employees will be motivated to further their knowledge and skills and set higher professional goals. 

That is particularly true for Millennials that are expected to make up 75% of the workforce by 2025. Studies say that 90% of Millennials want to improve careers in their current companies, while 56% of them even believe they could spend their entire careers there. Provided their employer offers the right skill and career advancement opportunities, Millennials are ready to spend more than 20 years working at the same company. 

Bridging the Skills Gap and Boosting Productivity

Companies in almost every sector face a skills gap. Doing the jobs they are not trained in may compromise your employees’ careers in many ways, such as the lack of motivation, slow professional growth, or inadequate perks and promotions. 

One of the most effective ways to eliminate the discrepancy between employee skills and the skills required by your company is to invest in employee training and development. SHRM states that 25% of employers believe that collaborating with educational institutions is critical for resolving workforce-development issues.

Career advancement opportunities will enhance your employees’ skills and knowledge so they can perform their tasks more productively. They increase employees’ understanding of the company’s policies and goals. Most importantly, you can choose promising employees and train them in the skills your organization needs instead of hiring and onboarding new staff members.

Over to You

Fortunately, employers are starting to understand the importance of employee training and development. According to the LinkedIn 2018 Workplace Learning Report, 27% of companies are preparing for budget increases within development strategies. 

And, with the help of employee learning tools and platforms and advanced AI and VR technologies, you can gamify employee training initiatives and make them more appealing and engaging.