The specific skills and training of a business?s employees directly affects its overall success. Skimping on training of new hires can actually affect your business success later on. Increasing the quality and length of employee development and training programs can be very advantageous to a business?s bottom line. Placing more focus and funding on an employee development program can result in the following benefits.
Reduction in employee retention rates
High employee retention rates are a common problem among businesses, especially when unemployment rates are low. Employees are constantly keeping an eye out for better opportunities. Although this can be difficult to completely prevent, putting time and money into better training programs for employees can encourage them to stay longer. Considering that retention rates cost businesses a lot of money in hiring and training costs, the additional costs of the employee development programs are worth it.
Better quality of executive team members
Many employees rate their satisfaction based on their superiors, usually the executive team members. The executive team members also have a direct effect on how your business is run and how profitable it is or is not. There are numerous qualities that are expected in an employee, however, the following soft skills are important to executive level employees. Soft skills are indicative of employee ability to problem solve, a measure of reliability, and leadership potential. Among the top 10 soft skills sought by employers, worth ethic (73%), dependability (73%), positive attitude (72%), self motivation (66%), team orientation (60%), and organization skills (57%). Employee development programs can be especially helpful in further developing these types of skills.
Increases work productivity
Low employee engagement rates equals low work productivity rates. Less than one third of Americans are engaged in their jobs in any given year. There are many causes of low engagement, but a poor skills match is one of the most common. When an employee is hired with unclear job requirements or does not match the recommended characteristics of the job, they are less likely to be engaged in that specific job. An employee development training program can foster those needed job skills. They can also help set better job expectations, thus also increasing the overall productivity of the employees.
Increase bottom line profits
The goal of any business is to make money, and lots of it. Every decision and plan that you make usually involves a plan to increase profits in some way. Implementing employee development programs specifically in sales training can help to achieve that goal. Although there are some basic personality traits that are expected in any sales position, further training is needed to reach full sales potential. Sales training programs can educate salespersons better on the products they are hired to sell. They can also provide them with additional sales techniques and tips.
Offer training for small businesses
Larger corporate businesses tend to have entire training departments that are dedicated to employee success. However, it may be more difficult for smaller businesses to have specified training departments. Creating an employee development program may not be in the budget for small businesses. In this case, business owners can bring in outsourced small business programs. These are specifically trained business training professionals that cater training programs to your employee?s needs. They may arrange training programs a couple times a year, or you might choose to send your new employees to the off site training program.
There are a few characteristics that are expected in a quality candidate. In a 2008 survey of more than 2,000 businesses in the state of Washington, employers said entry level workers in a variety of professions were lacking in several areas, including problem solving, conflict resolution, and critical observation. Finding employee candidates with these specific skills can be tough in today?s economic times, especially at the executive level. However, creating an employee development program that is specifically used to build and develop these skills can help increase the overall profits and success of the business.