Four reasons you should train your employees

You’ve got your business up and running, and it’s going well. You’ve got a number of experts in their field in, too, so you know those teams are in safe hands. If they know all there is to know, they don’t need any training - right?

Wrong! You need to make sure your staff are up to date with the latest developments and practices. This will help your business both in the short- and long-term, even if you think it seems like an unnecessary expense. Here are just some of the reasons why you should invest in employee training and development.

1 Your company will be more efficient

Everyone makes mistakes, but you want to minimise the likelihood of them happening within your business. So, how does staff training do that?

Employees who are trained properly make fewer mistakes. They will perform better, more efficiently and, ultimately, will end up being more productive. This also means that your company will spend less money on rectifying errors.

Proper training will also have an effect on workplace accidents, as the chance of these will decrease the chance of incidents happening. It means your staff will be safer because they know how to carry out tasks correctly, and they’ll know what to do if something does go wrong.

2 Employees will be more engaged

If your staff are interested in their workplace role, then you will see a positive effect on your company. A 2013 poll by Gallop said that only 24% of employees in Australia and New Zealand were engaged at work.

Yet training increases engagement. Making sure their skills are being developed will mean you’ll see your employees become more productive.

3 You will have policy-compliant staff

Your employees should have compliance training in procedures and policies that your organisation has, plus legislative obligations. The consequences of not carrying out this type of training can be critical - it can even be a matter of life and death when it comes to instances of workplace health and safety, for example.

4 You don’t have to retrain your employees

There are two parts to this. On one hand, there may be roles within your business that require regular assessment to make sure these people have the correct credentials and certifications. If you let these lapse, then they may have to retrain from scratch - which is not only time-consuming but can be costly to your business.

It might be that training hasn’t been done correctly - or at all - in the first place. These employees can do things wrong (and not know), might spend longer trying to work out how to do something that could have been demonstrated to them, or they avoid certain tasks because they don’t know how to do them or are unsure - and they don’t want to bother colleagues by continuing to ask questions.

If you want to implement training within your business, then you may wish to look at a training and development consultancy.

Specialists like this will help you with a bespoke solution that will benefit your employees and company.