Richard Branson famously said once: “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

 

A lack of employee training can lead to significantly negative side effects for the workplace and the overall business. Here are just some of them:

 

Low morale

Most employees like to feel a sense of pride in their work, do their jobs well and advance within the company. Without training, it is harder for employees to do this and they may feel undervalued, inadequate and unable to achieve their career goals. This can in turn lead to higher employee turnover.

 

Unproductivity

Untrained employees are less likely to be able to do their jobs as efficiently and confidently. This can lead to a lack of productivity, an increase in errors and potentially mean more experienced employees have to spend more time supervising with tasks. Employee training can reduce underperformance and time lost due to mistakes.

 

Increase in expenses

In the long run, employers are unlikely to save money by cutting costs on training. Mistakes, poor use of time, wasted resources and high employee turnover can all cost the company money.

 

Businesses – how to solve the problem of employee training

 

The cost of employee training is far outweighed by the benefits it can bring and the money it can save. Here are some ways you can implement training.

 

Outsource Training – if you don’t have the time or resources to provide training in-house, it may be cheaper and more practical to outsource training. Find out more.

 

Regularly invest in seminars and courses and let your employees suggest which courses they think they need. This can help to foster a culture of excitement in learning new skills and excelling at their jobs. If people higher up in the company are seen to be doing it too, this reinforces lifelong learning as part of the company culture.

 

Mentorship programmes – further a culture of learning in your company by pairing up lower-level employees with higher-level employees to encourage employee engagement and to both identify knowledge gaps and be able to close them.

 

Don’t frontload training – employee training should be an on-going process throughout their time at the company. Companies can make the mistake of giving lots of training at the start, before it fizzles out after the first 6 months. As your industry develops, or new technologies emerge, employees at every level should have the opportunity to gain new skills throughout their time at your company.