Given a choice between two plumbers- a trained and an untrained one, who would you choose? Also, the latter comes at a lesser cost. The trained one is the answer for sure. If you cannot trust an untrained plumber to fix your plumbing, how can you keep untrained employees in your staff? Are the few extra bucks worth the risk?
Often, business managers avoid hiring unqualified employees. But they don’t shy away from hiring under-qualified staff. In addition, the already hired staff becomes underqualified at times. This happens due to the change in technology and the development of innovative methods. This is where the need for employee training comes into the picture.
No one is going to deny the fact that employee training comes at a cost. But aged wine is always better in taste isn’t it? You have to give time, money and patience to reap the benefits. However, business owners make a lot of excuses to not train their staff. The often used excuses by them to not train the staff include:
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‘There is no money to pay for training.’
‘There is no time to learn new things.’
As reasonable and valid as these excuses sound to many, they are in the end, just excuses. You need to train your staff in order to get the best out of the workforce. The skills that used to matter in the past have to stay in the past now. Employees need a new set of skills to be efficient, adaptable and productive. These include:
- Critical thinking
- Communication skills
- Co-operation
- Resourcefulness and originality
Your employees are who will help make your company successful. They are the assets that get the work done. You need efficient training that is designed for your organization. This will help your employees gain the much needed next-generation skills. This, in turn, will gain your business tons of benefits.
Let us look at 5 reasons why employee training is a necessity
1- Plan ahead
If you keep training your staff on an ongoing basis, you will never have the problem of ‘irreplaceable staff’. Your talent pool will only keep getting efficient, thanks to the training you provide. Firms usually try to hire staff that is more than qualified for a particular job if not over. But what you as a business owner have to understand is that if you hire such staff for every position, a lot of money will go out of your pocket. Instead, hiring just a little under-qualified staff will help you save a lot of money. You train the employees on the job for some time and save. No worries about hiring highly qualified staff and paying them the big bucks. Plan ahead and the future is set.
2- Up-skill employees
By training your employees, you can up-skill and multi-skill them. What up-skilling means is that you expand knowledge of an already known skill and then go further to gain more information about the subject. Whereas, by multi-skilling, an employee is trained in various new work-related areas so that he can become more beneficial to the organization. With the increasing value of well-trained employees, company’s success is definite without a doubt. You are training them to be the best version of themselves while doing what your organization needs.
3- Reduce employee leaving problems
Every employee considers one job as a stepping stone for the next big thing. But you are training your employees to be the best in their field. The chances are that they will not leave you because you did so much for them. Trust is overrated can be agreed upon. Also, you didn’t reach this position by trusting everyone along the way, did you? But you have to trust a few people to get their trust in return. It is a two-way street. Once your staff gets the right training that it is benefitting them, attrition rates will go down for sure. This will also help bring down the recruitment costs for you are training your employees on the job. Save money and still have a trained staff.
4- Increase employee efficiency
When you update a machine, it gives you more productivity. Similarly, when you train your employees, you make them more efficient and productive. This in turn means growth for the company. Training also helps organizations get consistent products. Better workforce makes for great work. When trained staff works together, they work as a team. When a functional team comes on a project, you get the best results. Also, it becomes easier to project outcomes while meeting organizational goals and targets.
5- Become exemplary
If you give the best-in-industry training to your employees, you will build yourself a good reputation. It goes without saying that people follow word of the mouth. They hear you are good and do great work, they will, of course, come to you. This in turn will make your competitors uncomfortable. And uneasy competitors make mistakes that will benefit you in the end. Also, a lot of businesses operate in saturated markets. Markets where thirty-six options are available for a medicine for headache. In such situations, it is the small things that usually make a difference and make your business stand out.
You have to remember the importance of training your employees as it is progressive in nature. You invest in training your staff today and your staff will become more efficient. This in turn, before you know it will help your business grow by leaps and bounds. It is a rather simple calculation. What money goes around in training, comes around (back) in profits you make.
After establishing the importance, we move further to the more pressing matter. We cannot ignore the fact that training is costly. It can end up taking a toll on your firm’s budget. You had So what to do? How to save money and still train your staff? Simple. You can use staff and employee training software that is readily available all over the internet. This training software has been around for some time now and a lot of businesses and organizations have been using them to reap benefits. But you need to know how these software work, which is the right one for you and who all are using them. Know what you are getting into before getting your hands on them.
Who are using these employee training software?
A lot of companies from varied streams are using the software. Not to make you jump out of your seat but chances are that all your competitors are using them. They are using the software that you should be using to get ahead in the lane.
Online training has been on a rise for some time now. According to a report by Training Magazine Industry, ‘face-to-face’ training that employees receive has been declining and 41% of employee training was done in a classroom in 2016. This came down from 46% in 2015. In addition, 30% of training was delivered online in 2016.
It doesn’t matter that you own a digital marketing firm or a production house. You have to train people to make them more productive and the best in their field.
How does the training software work?
There still exist companies that use in-house systems to run their Learning Management Systems (LMS). However, a lot of organizations have started using cloud-based employee training software.
An report by global market research firm Technavio has predicted that, globally, more than 80% of organizations will adopt a cloud-based LMS by the year 2020. The reason given for such a widespread increase is that small and mid-sized businesses will be able to afford web-hosted training software.
A cloud-hosted LMS can easily save firms the cost of installing, buying and hosting their software. Cloud-based providers give companies the authoring tools that are needed to build an online course. Hence, these companies need not spend money on authoring software of their own.
Cloud-based software is always owned and hosted by a third party. But it happens often that the software is white-labeled. This basically means that the software owner’s name and logo will not show on the training modules given to the employees. This is good for the company as they can easily brand it as their own.
You know how the software work and you know what your needs are. Choose from the widely available LMS online and start training your employees. Finally, on to the software that you should be buying. While no one can tell you what to buy or not, suggestions are always on the way whether needed by someone or not. Quick-Launch Training Management and Tracking Software can help your company by leaps by bounds.
If you are serious about going up the business ladder, then you have to take gigantic steps. Think about it. Train your employees. They will not only be grateful to you for you have trained them for the future but will always respect you and give you their best.
Conclusion
Surely you have understood by now as to how important it is to train your employees if you want your company to grow. In addition, you know how important it is to save money. And the best way to save money is by investing in employee training software. Invest in your staff, invest in your future.
It is a one-time investment which, is worth every penny.
Be kind to your employees. Help them grow along with your company.
Good luck!!
