Does your organization prioritize employee learning and training? Employee learning has been shown to have links to business performance. A recent study found higher rates of business performance in organizations where employee learning and performance lay at the heart of their human resource and leadership strategy when compared to organizations that did not invest in human resource development or utilize transformational leadership styles.
There are various types of employee learning. The different methods of employee training include:
- eLearning
- Orientation and onboarding
- Instructor-led training
- Mentorship programs
- Skill development
- Lectures
- Team training, activities and discussions
- Examinations
- Case Studies
- Hands-on training
- Leadership training
- Simulation-based training
- Role-playing
Your organization will likely use a combination of various employee training methods dependent upon your business needs. When developing your employee training program, it’s important to understand the various benefits of employee learning.
By understanding the benefits of employee learning, you will soon learn to understand why employee learning should be a business priority for your company.
1) Increase job satisfaction
One of the most notable benefits of employee learning is its relationship with job satisfaction. Many studies have shown that investing in employee training results in those employees having greater levels of job satisfaction.
Job satisfaction should be recognized as an important component of an employee’s lifecycle and their motivations to remain loyal to their current employer. For example, a study into hotel employees found that employee training was positively related to training satisfaction and job satisfaction. This then had an indirect effect where job satisfaction positively led to intention to stay at their job.
Investing in employee training should, therefore, be a business priority if you want to benefit from having employees who are satisfied within their current role.
2) Maintain and nurture top talent
Developing an employee training program within your organization will also help you to better maintain and nurture top talent. Nurturing your existing employees and helping them to unlock their full potential by providing learning opportunities can turn “average” employees into top performers.
Research has found that internal employee development has a greater organizational benefit than external recruitment. Benefits of nurturing internal talent include improved motivation, lower staff turnover and reduced business costs.
3) Reduce employee turnover
It has been stated that two in three workers have changed jobs due to a lack of learning and development opportunities. Having a high employee turnover can be costly for your business. However, providing employee training can significantly reduce your employee turnover rate.
In order to reduce employee turnover, you should look to provide employee training for new employees as part of their onboarding and as an ongoing process for existing employees. One of the reasons why new employees leave a job within the first six months was due to a lack of training. In this same study it was also found that on-the-job training was one of the requests on a new hires onboarding wishlist.
A report by LinkedIn found that an impressive 94% of employees would stay with their current employer if they invested in employee learning and development. Knowing this, it is evident that employee learning should be considered a business priority if you want to retain employees and minimize the costs associated with having a high employee turnover rate.
4) Gain an advantage over competitors
It could be argued that a company’s greatest asset is its employees. In fact, a research report noted that, in a competitive environment, people make a difference and the quality of an organization’s employees can impact the organization’s productivity, customer service, reputation and survival. Investing in your employees can, therefore, help your organization to get an industry advantage over your competitors.
Rather than hiring new employees, it would be more beneficial to invest in employee training in order to enhance the skills and capabilities of your current employees. This, in turn, will help your business stay at the forefront of your industry.
5) Boost company reputation
The reputation of your company can be integral to its success. Having a strong positive reputation can allow your organization to be perceived as providing high levels of value. This perceived value can enable your business to charge a premium, can increase customer loyalty and can attract better people to your business.
As we know employee learning will improve job satisfaction and performance, it can be said that these factors will, as a result, raise the reputation of your business by showing employees, competitors and customers that you are a company that truly cares about employee experience and business performance.
6) Reduce stagnation
When employees become comfortable in their role they run a risk of complacency. This complacency could turn into demotivation, boredom and eventually underperformance. A workforce study by Gallup found that 55 percent of employees are not engaged at work. This disengagement could stem from a lack of meaningful relationships at work.
There are several ways to combat employee stagnation. One of which is by making employee learning a business priority. Investing in employee learning and development can help stagnated employees to set in-house career goals and objectives to work towards. Thus, helping them to develop a meaningful connection with their work.
7) Improve your bottom line
Ultimately, the purpose of any business is to turn over a profit every year so that you can remain a profitable, successful business for the long term. One way to improve the bottom line of your organization is by prioritizing employee learning.
By improving employee retention rates through training you can avoid company costs associated with hiring and training new employees. Other ways that employee learning can impact your organization’s bottom line is through improved customer service and reduced error frequency. All of which can add up to have a significant positive impact on the profitability of your business.
About the Author: Jocelyn Pick
