Does your company want longtime employees who are curious, driven, and productive? Teams that are collaborative, motivated, and aligned? To be an innovative and agile business that crushes its objectives and stands out from its competitors? Investing in employee training and development can help you accomplish that.
We’ve always known that helping employees grow their skills improves employee performance and boosts productivity. It’s also good for business, and recent McKinsey research proves it. McKinsey’s study shows that companies that “build human capital” are more successful than their counterparts. Compared to other companies in their sectors, “human capital builders”:
- Show consistent earnings and are more resilient during crises
- Retain more talent with attrition rates that are around 5% lower
- Boost employees’ lifetime earnings potential
- Are more likely to be “superstars” in their sectors, companies that earn $1 billion or more in profit
- Encourage innovation from the bottom-up while challenging and empowering their employees, rather than top-down management
Opportunities to gain new skills sets your company apart for job seekers who are considering multiple offers and top talent that’s already employed — 69% say they’d leave their job for upskilling opportunities elsewhere.
69% of employees would quit if they had better learning opportunities elsewhere. Don’t risk it — invest in employee #training and development:Keep reading for more on the importance and benefits of investing in employee learning and development.
What are development and training?
A certain amount of learning happens naturally in every role, but companies often purposefully give team members opportunities to gain new skills or improve their strengths. Employee development and training are different types of learning opportunities. Both training and development are useful depending on the employee and their role and goals.
Employee training programs are typically standardized, meaning they don’t change from one employee to the next, and structured, following a set schedule. The goal of training employees is to teach them a new technical skill, like how to perform a specific task or complete a particular process. Training sessions or programs are usually required by companies depending on employees’ roles or duties.
On the other hand, employee development is usually led by the individual themselves to nurture their unique strengths, build soft skills, or progress along a career path. Some of the ways companies can promote and facilitate development include:
- Training managers to discuss employees’ career goals during one-on-ones and performance reviews
- Supporting development goals with tuition reimbursement or education allowances
- Creating career paths for roles within the organization
Embracing employee training and development at all levels
“High-impact leadership organizations” spend as much as three times more on developing their management than their peers. - via Harvard Business Review
Employees from the top to the bottom of the org chart can benefit from training and development. And more than likely, most of them will need it — ORG found that around half of all employees will need to learn new skills in the coming years.
You can give employees at any level a chance to learn:
- Executives benefit from earning advanced degrees and receiving leadership coaching.
- Managers can level up by earning certifications and completing continuing education.
- Any employee can grow with job-specific training and encouragement from their managers.
The benefits of training and development
As we can see from McKinsey’s research, companies that invest in their people have a competitive edge in their industries. Their employees stay longer, they can weather economic crises, and they’re more profitable overall.
Take a closer look at seven of the benefits of employee training and development plans.
1. Retain your best employees
We mentioned that the majority of employees would jump ship for better learning opportunities. But did you know that 94% of employees agree they’d stay at their company longer if it invested in them?
Hold onto your best and brightest and reap the benefits of employee retention by investing in your employees. Offer detailed training courses, continuing education classes, and other opportunities for employees to enhance their skills or learn something new.
94% of workers would stay longer if they had chances to grow and develop — find out more benefits of investing in your people:2. Develop your company’s future leaders
Eventually, your people in leadership roles will move on, whether they switch roles, get promoted, or accept a position at another company. Training and development plans are an excellent way to fill those critical roles with employees who are familiar with company culture and have a depth of knowledge from years at the organization that can’t be replicated.
Identifying and nurturing potential leaders is easier than ever with talent management software. Equip your human resources team with everything they need to find and develop leaders:
- Standardized, cyclical performance reviews
- In-depth performance reporting and analytics
- Tools for planning future workforce needs
3. Empower your employees
You can empower good employees to be great employees with training and development initiatives. A company culture of learning enables them to expand their skills and knowledge, builds self-confidence, and increases innovation and creativity at work. When employees feel empowered, and learning is part of the every day, your company is 92% more likely to develop novel products and processes.
4. Strengthen employee engagement strategy
The power of employee engagement means that it’s one of the most significant metrics HR teams measure and monitor. Professional development opportunities can help your employees grow their knowledge and skills and build engagement. Research shows that encouraging learning and development can result in 15% higher engagement levels.
5. Employees get more work done
This is one of the biggest benefits of investing in training and development — employees that can accomplish more work. When every employee receives the same thorough training, there’s far less confusion about what needs to be done, and they can complete work faster. Research shows that companies with a strong learning culture are 52% more productive.
6. Fosters a positive work environment
When you encourage learning and growth, it’s reflected in a more positive work environment. Employees feel supported by managers and their companies, teams are more collaborative, and communication improves.
7. Builds technology proficiency
Train your employees on how to use the various technologies your business utilizes to encourage proficiency. This makes them faster to adapt to new and changing technology in the future, builds their digital skill set, and keeps your company on the cutting edge of tech trends in your industry.
How HR Can Drive Training and Development with Software
As with most people management initiatives, HR teams are often the main drivers of training programs and development opportunities. But how do you know what employees think of your current training programs, which skills your team lacks, or which employees are leadership material? With the help of a full-platform talent management system, your team can learn all of this — and more.
ClearCompany’s full-platform Talent Management software gives your HR team access to valuable insights so you can plan and execute employee development strategies that work:
- Survey employees to find out what types of training and development programs they’re interested in
- Analyze performance review results to identify high performers who are good candidates for promotions or skills development
- Reveal skills gaps and implement upskilling or reskilling efforts to fill them
Invest in employee development by investing in tools that help your HR team make better decisions. Sign up for a demo of ClearCompany Talent Management for a closer look at what you can learn from your workforce data to refine your employee training and development strategies.
