Humans are curious creatures, add to that a rapidly changing social, technological and business landscapes, like the one we have had for the past several decades and the idea that one's learning should be confided to some particular time at school, suddenly becomes very bizarre and antiquated. So, it has become almost impossible to keep up to the latest trends in your own profession. If you are not spending at least two hours per day updating in your chosen profession, you probably are behind the state of the art.
New developments – Itis something that all sectors have in common. When markets change and organisations do not adjust their strategy on time, they eventually tent to regret or face a failure.
If organisations need to stay ahead of competition, new expertise and skills need to be obtained.
The strategic influence of continuous training and learning is based on two principles:
1. Quick adaptation
New developments need new skills within the organisations. The faster these developments succeed one and other, the faster new skills need to be acquired. Rather than establishing new training programmes each time, it is more effective to introduce new skills in an existing continuous training programme.
2. Cost reduction and improvement of quality.
There will not be a necessity to outsource or recruit a new employee to do certain tasks that could be done if an existing employee was trained. Moreover, with continuous training given to employees, the output quality of an organisation would keep increasing drastically.
All business's decision makers must remember that
1.The market is not static and neither should employees' skills.
As mentioned previously, most sectors are constantly changing and always prepared to adapt to new changes or perish. It is impossible to serve your 2017 clientele with a 2009 approach.
2. Law is not static!
While certain industries may have it easy, others drown in a sea of ever newer and more complex regulations that they have to comply with, covering all aspects of business; from ethics to packaging and carbon emissions.
3.To take advantage of the latest technology
Everybody has a laptop and a smart phone. Conduct hybrid learning sessions (online /in-house) and always let employees to communicate from anyplace at any time.
4. Make sure you make your employees to put the lessons to practice
As humans, everyone forgets easily. In order to maintain knowledge and skills, employees would need to refresh their memories and keep practicing regularly.
It has been found that many organisations tend to invest time, money and energy on induction trainings for new employees and they often overlook and fail to understand the importance of continuous training and development of the entire workforce as a whole. So that is exactly why many organisations fail to maintain their success and also experience a high employee turnover.
Organisations must stop just focusing on induction courses and mentoring new employees, and get their HR department plan on continuous training programs for existing employees and provide them opportunities to grow both personally and professionally. The training programs should be set out according to the organisational needs and the rapid industry developments so that employees are kept updated of the changes and would have adequate skills to perform their daily tasks at work efficiently.
Your question maybe, 'WHY' exactly must organisations invest on employee training and continuous development on the existing employees?
Organisations would ignore training sessions thinking that it is expensive and would make employees miss out on their work while attending these sessions. But what organisations fail to understand are the underlying benefits of these continuous training sessions and how they contribute to the organisation in the greater scheme of things.
Benefits of conducting continuous training programs for existing employees are:
1. Addressing weaknesses
Most of the employees do have some sort of weaknesses in their workplace skills. A training programme would allow to strengthen those skills that each employee is need of to improve. Development programmes bring all employees to higher standards and would have similar skills and knowledge. These would help in reduction of any weak links within the organisation who rely heavily on others to complete basic work tasks. Providing the necessary training creates and overall knowledgeable staff of employees who can take over for each other when anyone is in need of. It becomes easy, working on teams or independently without constant attention or supervision for others.
2.Improvement of employees performances
An employee who receives necessary trainings are better able to perform their job. They become aware of safety practices and procedures for basic tasks. Trainings help in building employee's confidence, give a stronger understanding of the industry and the responsibilities of the job. The confidence will push them to perform even better and would help them think innovatively with great ideas helping them excel in their profession. Continuous training also keeps employees in the cutting edge industry of developments and competent employees are on top of changing industry standards which helps the organisation to hold a position as a leader in the industry by being competitive.
3.Consistent
A well-structured continuous development program ensures that employees would have a consistent experience and an overall background knowledge. The consistency is particularly relevant for the organisations basic policies and procedures. Every employee needs to be well aware of the expectations and procedures within the organisation. This includes safety, discrimination and administrative tasks. Putting all employees through their regular training in these areas ensures that all staff members at least have right exposure to information.
4.Employee satisfaction
Employees who go through these regular trainings in the organisation have the advantage over employees in other companies who are left to seek out training opportunities on their own. The investment on employees for trainings show that these employees are very much valued. The training creates a supportive workplace and also keeps employees very motivated to perform better each day. Employees who feel appreciated and challenged through training opportunities may feel very much satisfied about their own jobs.
The excellence of human capital is the only thing that sets organisations apart. It is therefore extremely important that organisations invest in selecting the very best people when hiring employees and then to invest in maintaining and growing their capabilities. Training the employees is an excellent investment, not a cost.
