I learn therefore I am
Professional training for real people
Improving Employee Retention Through Training
Improving employee retention through training is a strategic management tactic that is often overlooked. All too often a business assumes giving people a salary raise or more vacation time will create job satisfaction. Instead what happens is the staff adjusts their standard of living to consume the raise and are away from their jobs longer due to the increased paid leave time. They remain dissatisfied while at work.
It is difficult to do any job when you don’t have access to the right training. Struggling through a job, or spending time doing a job wrong, results in frustration and often leads to conflict between employees, and employees and managers. The employees feel as if their employer really doesn’t care enough about the quality of the job being done if they refuse to invest in training. The result is the staff and the employer are unhappy with the results.
Employees that sense a company will not invest in adequate training will seek other employment. Staff turnover is an expensive proposition for a business. Anytime an employee leaves and must be replaced, there is a learning curve for new staff and during the early stages of employment productivity will drop. In addition, the manager responsible for productivity of departmental staff must spend an inordinate amount of time making sure the replacement staff has enough information to do the rudiments of the job. Then the cycle starts all over again.
Training Not for Training’s Sake
Increasing employee retention is possible by providing staff training. But it cannot be training just for training’s sake. Most people who work in a business environment have, at some point, sat through a seminar wondering why they are being forced to listen to information not relevant to their job.
Staff training must be focused, and it must be focused on providing the tools and knowledge staff need to do their job. The training must be relevant on many levels.
- Promote corporate mission and culture
- Increase customer relationship management
- Teach communication skills
- Instruct in use of technology
- Encourage creative thinking
- Develop potential managers
This probably sounds like an ambitious agenda. But an effective training program that is well designed and addresses the very real day-today issues employees must be able to handle to do their jobs well will result in increased employee retention. The reason is quite simple. Well trained employees take ownership mentally and emotionally of a company when they are treated as valuable assets.
Developing an “Our” Organization
Staff who do not take some level of ownership of their place of employment are normally dissatisfied employees who always keep their jobs at an arm’s length so to speak. They never really feel as if they need to be as productive as possible or need to put forth the extra effort good job performance always requires. Eventually it is inevitable these employees will seek another job.
Employee training builds staff confidence, competence and a sense of job ownership. The result is a workforce that is knowledgeable and has a high level of job satisfaction. When someone is satisfied, they will stay right where they are….on the job.
