Whether you’re running a start-up business or a Fortune 500 company, factors surrounding the happiness and competence of your employees can affect the overall performance of your business. Aspects such as employee benefits, workplace culture, and growth opportunities all play a vital role in keeping your employees motivated at what they do.
A business’ success relies on several factors, and one of the most important is the expertise of the people behind a business. As a leader, you should make it a point to invest on your people and train them to improve. As a businessman, you must constantly hone their skills so they can provide quality work that leads to better business performance.
“Leadership is learning, just in front of more people.”
– Daniel Flynn, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Thankyou
However, some business owners forget to take care of their people, which becomes a source of a company’s growth impediments. Below, we pointed out some important factors that are positively affected by simply training your staff.
Employee motivation
Even if the needs of your business become hard and demanding, which could sometimes be stressful for employees to fulfil, skills development training opportunities can give them a much-needed boost of confidence. Training your staff can also make them feel valued, appreciated, yet challenged, and could make them feel satisfied with the work they put in.
Inspiring employees to master or learn new skills through training can also create a supportive workplace environment. Additionally, this can help them discover some capabilities they won’t know they’re good at if not for your encouragement to learn. For this, your employees will be upskilled and motivated to put in quality work for your business.
Turnover rates
One of the most common concerns in employment is stagnation. A study found that, while employees stay an average of 15 months in one role, an additional 10 months increases the odds of an employee looking for new opportunities in other companies by 1%. Without a clear and consistent stream of improvement opportunities either through promotions or skills development training, your employees will most likely look for their next big break outside your organization.
If you see great potential in an employee, provide them with a strong reason to stay with your business by investing in them. Training can also be a retention tool that gives employees a feeling of commitment and loyalty to the organization.
Company recruitment
Within industries and top-level positions where qualified individuals are a scarcity, development opportunities at work is a strong selling point. In the same way a company looks at what an individual can bring for their business, today’s generation of experts are becoming keener on what growth opportunities are available for them at work. While employers think salary and benefits are major factors for new hires, 51% of employees and prospective employees actually cited professional development opportunities as their top priority.
Your organization’s solid career improvement opportunities can become a topic of discussion among experts, and will help you establish a desirable employer brand in the long run.
Efficiency in time & resources
The benefits of a satisfied, confident, and well-trained employee can’t be reaped by anyone else but the organization – of course, so long as they remain with the company, which is usually the case with happy employees. Since your staff will be able to identify issues, remove redundancies, and implement smart solutions in a timely fashion, this will definitely help your business operate with an improved level of efficiency while saving on resources. Additionally, since there is a reduction of turnover among your staff, your organization will be paying severance packages a lot less, and will prevent your business from shedding more money by hiring new employees.
Brand perception & customer feedback
As your employees put in better quality of work, overall satisfaction among your staff and stakeholders will also improve, which will resonate throughout the organization and trickle down to every customer and client. In fact, a 2005 study underscores the critical relationship between employee attitudes and customer satisfaction, which is especially more evident in industries that interact with their customers on a day-to-day basis. This is why training – especially among hospitality industry employees and customer-facing experts – is very crucial to a business’ success.
Businesses, especially those who maintain brands, know just how important a company’s reputation is in building a trusted name. Thanks to the internet and social media, today’s customers are empowered to share their experiences in real-time. Businesses that fail to meet customer’s expectations, or issues with a product or service can easily reach thousands of people should it become viral on social media. If this happens, it could be a nightmare for a business to fix. With well-trained and loyal employees, the possibility of this scenario unfolding is extremely minimised.
Provides leaders with legroom to plan ahead
As your employees become able to handle day to day operations without issues by themselves and take accountability on key business operations on their own, you might find yourself with nothing left to do. As a business owner, this provides you the opportunity to begin looking into the future of your business. Seize this opportunity to create plans to scale your business and execute these plans with employees that are loyal, fulfilled, and happy to work as you achieve your organizations’ success.