Upskilling and Training Your Team

Every business has some kind of training in place – whether it’s showing new employees how to use the coffee machine, or run them through the procedure in dealing with customer complaints.

And of course those onboarding sessions are necessary in helping your staff get to grips with the workplace and how things are done. But what about training that strengthens your team itself?

Offering regular training so staff can improve their skills or experience is also key – especially now. Post Covid, new business models have emerged, workers are having to adapt to changing conditions and it’s up to companies to equip their employees with the skills they need. Training staff also helps your business stay strong and resilient too, say experts. Here’s why.

1. It helps your team prioritise

You’ve probably heard the statistic about how it’s cheaper to retrain your employees than hire new ones. In fact, the cost of replacing an individual employee can range for one half to two times the employee’s annual salary, according to Gallup – whereas offering retraining or upskilling is a much smaller investment.

TAFE research also shows that offering training and upskilling opportunities to your staff can boost staff retention. In fact, according to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report, 68 percent of employees reported that they preferred to learn at work, and whopping 94 percent said they’d stay at the company longer if it invested in their career.

Studies show that job-seekers these days will change careers around 5-7 times during their working life. And if you subscribe to a ‘lifelong learning’ approach, helping employees upskill and actively creating new long-term career pathways for them, you’ll be a company people want to work for. And you’ll have a more diverse pool of talent to choose from!

Offering employees professional development opportunities makes them feel valued, happier in their roles – and it can improve team morale, say experts. On the flip side, if you’ve got unhappy employees leaving in droves, that can lead to a breakdown in morale, says Gallup.

Developing a culture of learning in your company can serve you well in a competitive market – because you’ll have a strong team with cutting-edge experience and skills. That might mean devising a corporate learning strategy with a focus on training, building expertise, collaborating, sharing knowledge and developing ‘corporate capability’.

As we’ve written about on the blog before, improving digital literacy is front and centre for so many industries right now – including manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare and retail. So ensuring your employees have the right digital training and skills can only make for a more functional and productive team – and happier customers.

Want to know more about creating a stronger team and more productive workforce? Check out our latest blog posts or download our Guides