As more organizations continue to shift their approach from recovery to growth, there’s naturally a growing concern developing about the potential risk of losing their key talent to competitors, as well as how to attract the talent they need to help their organization strengthen their competitive edge.
In most cases, these discussions tend to focus either on discovering key talent within your organization or how to attract the talent you need to join your team. Unfortunately, these strategies tend to be limited in scope and can cause leaders to overlook the advantages of developing their employees to meet the evolving needs of their organization.
One of the most effective ways to do this – with the added bonus of increasing employee retention – is by offering training programs. By offering such programs, employees are given the opportunity to not only refine and develop their skills in order to be more effective in their roles, but it also encourages them to take the time to evaluate their career goals and come up with ideas of how their organization can help them to achieve them.
Granted, one of the reasons why most employers are reluctant to provide employee training is because they fear that they will lose the investment made through such efforts if their employees leave the organization to work elsewhere. However, such fears don’t counter the value your organization will gain by providing training to your employees.
After all, your training programs shouldn’t be designed simply to help your employees with their professional development. Rather, your employee training programs should serve to communicate and guide your employees on how they can use their skills and resources to help your organization reach its shared goals.
This is something Aaron Herrington, co-founder of the digital advertising agency Modea, discovered when he began to provide training programs to his employees in order to address the changing needs of his growing firm. Thanks to their training programs, Herrington has found that his employees “are much more aligned and understand the direction and expectation of what everyone else does. That has made what we do and how we do it more efficient.”
So we if recognize the value and necessity of providing training programs to our employees, how do we address the other point of resistance organizations face in offering such programs – namely, the ability to allocate financial resources to such efforts?
In the article, “Can’t Afford Employee Training Programs? Think Again”, there are a number of strategies and approaches provided that any organization – regardless of size or the amount of available resources – can implement to either begin offering employee training programs or to help bolster and develop ones they currently offer to their employees.
In the end, the simple truth is that organizations can no longer treat employee training as a perk or a luxury that can be afforded only in upbeat economic times. The harsh realities of navigating a competitive and rapidly changing global market means that only those organizations that are willing to invest in developing their employees will be able to ride the waves and remain on target to achieving their shared goals.
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Tanveer,
Thanks for the post. After reading it, the following thought comes to mind:
How can an organization grow if the people in it aren't growing?
I definitely think it's possible that employees who are trained may just leave and go work at another company.
But instead of using this as an excuse to not provide training for employees, perhaps those who are worried about this should instead focus their attention on things they can do to keep those employees.
Thanks also for sharing the MSN article.
Hi Greg,
I find it interesting how organizations try to hide behind the excuse that they don't want to provide employee training because they fear their employees will leave to work at another company. Frankly, if leaders are afraid of this outcome, their focus shouldn't be on limiting employee training as it should be on understanding why their employees would want to leave since even they are aware (but unwilling to voice) that there are reasons for people to leave to work elsewhere.
Your question "How can an organization grow if the people in it aren't growing?" reminds me of another powerful question another reader shared with me – "What if we don't train our employees and they stay?".
Thanks for adding another thought-provoking question to this discussion, Greg. Appreciate it.
Tanveer,
Thanks for the response. And I wanted to mention that I LOVE this:
"What if we don't train our employees and they stay?"
Excellent point!
People are the most important asset of a company. I just think that a company has to invest on their people. After all, this is really one way to retain them and get their loyalty.
Absolutely, Candice. As much as it's an investment in your employees, providing training is also an investment in your organization's future, as well as a way to demonstrate to potential hires how much you value developing employees in your organization.
Solid post Tanveer. Old adage we use in the restaurant business might be applicable here. When challenged on training, some owners say, why spend money on training if people are going to leave to which I respond, what if you do not spend money on training and they stay?
I guess this other reader must be in the food industry as well as they shared that exact same quote which I mentioned above. I think it needs to be shared more, as well as pondered more by those who are thinking about holding back on investing in employee training.