Training and Development: The New Keys to Employee Loyalty

Every manager wants their team to be composed of highly skilled specialists. While it is in the best interest of the business to have employees who are developed professionally, most managers see this as the staff’s personal initiative and not the responsibility of their organisation. This is fundamentally wrong.

In the job market, it’s very difficult to hire a highly experienced employee who has undergone training with other organisations, and even when it happens, their loyalty will not be as strong as that of those you trained yourself.

This means that their probability of leaving you for another employer is higher than that of the ones you have invested money and time in training. And just like any other business asset, your employees require investment through training and personal development programs.

The importance of employee loyalty is many fold, from reducing costs of employee retention, efficiency in the workplace and increased employee engagement.

Advantages of investing in employee training and development

1. Leads to the creation of a loyal workforce

Investing in training and development will make your employees feel appreciated and valued. This sense of “belonging” will foster a culture of staff loyalty, which will allow your business to reap the benefits this brings, such as employee referrals and recommendations, increased engagement, and ongoing commitment to your company’s best interests.

See employee referrals rise as a result of increased staff loyalty

2. Gaining a competitive advantage over other organisations

In the current job market, there is very high competition for recruiting top talent. Including an employee development program as one of the benefits and perks of working with your company will help you to attract the best recruits. And in the long run, you can bask in the knowledge that your business has employed a group of highly skilled people!

3. Decreases turnover

Research shows that replacing an employee can cost 6 to 9 months’ worth of the departed team member’s salary. This direct financial loss aside, a high rate of employee turnover also impacts the profitability, market position, and revenue of your business negatively. Offering an employee training program will result in employees staying for longer, leading to less turnover.

4. Increases market flexibility

A company that constantly engages in employee training and development shows an impressive level of flexibility. Rapid improvements in technology and the rise of the digital workplace produce a market that is constantly shifting and switching, so it’s important that your employees are up to speed with the latest trends. Regular training will make sure your employees are well equipped to respond to these changes in a way that is profitable to your organisation.

Want staff development to be a positive investment? Make sure your training program is engaging for staff.

 

If you are ready to deliver a staff training and development program, there is a right – and wrong – way to do it. The wrong way to deliver training is by asking a senior employee to perform it or recruiting a third-party individual to do it for you. This is because it under-utilises the senior employees who could better spend their time on their own job. An external trainer, on the other hand, does not have an understanding of your organisation’s culture, services, processes, and products.

The right way to do it is to create a complete training program that’s personalised to your organisation and staff. And this is where an internal Learning Management System (LMS), or e-learning software, comes in.

Advantages of using an e-learning system for training and development

• • An LMS enables training to occur within your organisation, and no employees are required to abandon their tasks in order to train others
  • Using an LMS, an employer can choose the time that least interrupts the schedule of their employees to make sure productivity is not affected
  • E-learning systems help the business to save on costs that would have been spent renting spaces, buying food, hiring external trainers, and covering travel expenses
  • An LMS also allows you to track training progress, enabling managers to monitor the development of each individual, preventing any of them from falling behind
  • An LMS caters for the varying learning capabilities and needs of your staff, providing them with various training methods such as quizzes, videos, lecture slides, or interactive courses
  • Many e-learning systems are equipped with tools aimed at improving employee motivation and engagement, such as badges, forums, chatrooms, gamification, and social media integration which fosters friendly competition
  • An LMS can be integrated into your organisation’s intranet software to make it a part of your business culture, which will improve employee uptake of training programs

When selecting an e-learning system for your organisation, you should keep your employees’ and company’s needs and abilities in mind. This includes how it will integrate with other systems, any security restrictions of storing your data, and if you have the right resources available to install and manage the LMS.