Gone are the days of ‘a job is for life’, yet it is as important as ever to implement good workplace training schemes.
Whether your workforce is made up of millennials, baby boomers or other demographics - the emphasis and value a well-trained employee will bring to your company is invaluable.
Now, more than ever - employees regard workplace training as vital to their career progression and the start of 2017 couldn’t be a better time to start reaping the rewards for your business.
Want your staff to stay? Make training a priority
There’s always the conundrum, ‘what if you train them and they leave?’, but ‘what if you don’t train them and they stay?’. Staff who are merely ‘getting by’ or stuck in their ways are not profitable or efficient assets for your business.
Having a workforce who feel their career progression, skill set development and workload efficiency is a key priority to their employer are more likely to stay within a business and also pass on their new found knowledge and practices to other employees.
Employers who are continually investing in employees via workplace training are also much more likely to see a positive correlation in terms of their business growth.
The start of the year is the perfect time for a fresh start
Just as those in the financial sector and related industries work to the financial year, many companies now structure their working year (including annual leave allowance and appraisal schemes) around the calendar year.
This accounts for the inevitable extended periods of time away from work over Christmas, either as implemented by the employer, or taken out of the employee's annual allowance - and allows for a fresh start after this period.
Many workplace training systems are well received at this time of year, with employees being more open to new ways of working and improving ahead of the start of the new working year.
Workplace training: start as you mean to go on
If workplace training is relatively new to your business, starting as you mean to go on (and at the start of a new year) is a good way of getting your existing employees on board.
Giving your employees the knowledge and skills to become more efficient and productive will see them feeling a higher level of job satisfaction, sense of worth to the company and a subsequent thirst to further develop these new skills.
Similarly, introducing any new employees to workplace training schemes at the start of their employment with you helps to eradicate the risk of picking up bad habits from other team members and ensures a basic level of knowledge for their job role is met, in a way that compliments your business structure.
Introducing new members to the company's processes from the start will help to prevent any major differences in working practices further down the line.