June 29, 2017
Posted by
Amy Lewkovich
If you want to streamline your operations and improve your customer and employee satisfaction, making some improvements to your employee-training process may be just what you need. In fact, you may not realize just how many benefits you stand to gain by implementing or amplifying your new employee-training program.
Employee training is the first step toward building a strong foundation for your organization. It’s how you give your staff the tools they need to succeed as individuals and to work together and excel as a team.
Elements of effective employee training Simply having an employee orientation and training program isn’t enough. Your program needs to work, or it’s just a giant waste of resources and a source of frustration. There are plenty of ways to make your employee training work for everyone—you can start by making it informational, fun, and engaging.
Here are a few ways to improve the effectiveness of your employee-orientation program:
Offer the option to train in-person or online—this will appeal to different learning styles and busy schedules.
Keep your employees focused and engaged by adding dynamic elements like videos, games, demonstrations, and interactive exercises.
Avoid including any information or material that is not absolutely necessary at the time of the training.
Two reasons why new training will save you thousands We could go on and on about the benefits you’ll reap from properly training your employees but we’ll limit the list to just two things right now: mistakes and turnover.
The cost of mistakes When new employees aren’t properly trained, they’re prone to frequent mistakes. Makes sense, right? These mistakes can add up to large sums of money that would have been better spent on…you guessed it: employee orientation and training! In some cases, these mistakes can lead to lost customers, which is the biggest cost of all. Proper training early on can help your employees avoid costly mistakes.
The cost of turnover Numerous studies have proven that turnover is one of the largest expenses any company will battle. When you add it up, the cost to recruit, interview, hire, and train a new employee can seem astronomical. And if you have a high rate of turnover, you’re repeating this process over and over again to fill the empty spots. If you train new employees upfront you can reduce your turnover rate, which will reduce the amount of time and money you spend to hire new employees. Sounds like a win-win to us!
The bottom line is that untrained employees are more likely to turn into unhappy employees because they feel inadequate and unsupported. The frustration of not being able to do their jobs as well as they’d like can lead to costly missteps and more employees quitting or getting fired. An effective employee-training program will be one of the best investments you can make in the future of your company because satisfied and successful employees will propel your company toward success.
Bottom line: Don’t throw thousands of dollars down the drain year after year, simply because you don’t have an employee orientation or training program in place. Remember, the more you invest in your employees, the more they will invest in your company.