Written by Heidi Wadsworth | 5th July 2022

Your people are an essential part of the ‘S’ in ESG and people want to work for, with and invest in companies that treat their employees well.

One of the ways you can invest in your team as part of your Environmental, Social and Governance strategy is through training – here are six advantages of staff training.

Improve employee engagement

Employees who are not challenged by their role can feel unmotivated – this can then have a knock-on effect on their performance.

To avoid this, you could invest in training and development. The first step is to find out what training your people could benefit from. They may have an idea of an area they want to develop their skills in, or you may have to work with them to identify any weaknesses and where they need extra support.

By offering employee development and training programmes unique to the individual, and demonstrating how their efforts contribute to the business, your teams are more likely to engage with this and their role.

Boost employee loyalty and retention

When you invest in employee training and development, employees are most-likely going to feel valued and appreciated. We can see this from stats like this national survey of over 400 employees, where 70% said training and development opportunities influenced their decision to stay in a company.

Training can show people that there is potential for career progression and alongside a clear development path it encourages them to remain loyal to their employer.

Also, training around areas such as Equality, Diversity and Inclusion can show them how the company is keen to stay up to date and current; demonstrating that you are a forward thinking company can be a real positive for retention.

Helps employees understand and fit within the company culture

Some people can have a feel for the company culture and instantly gel with the rest of the team as soon as they join a company, while others might take longer to adapt or feel comfortable. Just because it may take time, it doesn’t mean someone isn’t a good ‘cultural fit’. You can facilitate that process with training, particularly on your company mission, values and culture – the way you work.

This will help employees feel more aligned with your company values and can improve relationships with their colleagues.

Improves performance

It goes without saying that an employee who receives the necessary training is going to be more able to perform in their job. It will give them a greater understanding of their responsibilities within the role and in turn build their confidence.

Employees may perform poorly because they lack certain skills or knowledge. But when they have all the resources needed to excel in their job, they will be more confident. We don’t just mean the technical stuff, training can help employees develop the soft skills too – improving the ability to communicate, be creative, innovative and solve problems.

A training programme also helps to measure performance – i.e. If they’ve had training in a particular area, you can look at whether their work, actions or behaviour reflect that they’ve had the training.

Improve business efficiency

As well as training for their current job role, you can provide training to upskill employees in other areas of the business or let them learn a new skill of their choice. By doing this, you are not only developing the employee’s personal skills and increasing employee engagement, but also improving efficiencies within the company.

By spreading knowledge throughout your team, you have support with training future hires as employees can help train each other. It also means you aren’t left in the lurch if one employee who was very skilled at something in particular, leaves.

Attract more talent

Talented staff look for roles in companies where there is opportunity for growth. If they know you offer continuous on-the-job training, they’re more likely to want to join you. Training opportunities are a good incentive to have and communicate as part of your recruitment strategy – it shows you care for your employees.

To encourage buy-in from your people, it’s important to create any context for training sessions, making sure employees understand their importance and how they can add value to them as an individual. If employees see training as worthwhile, they are likely to be much more engaged in a session and take something positive away.

Our management training courses can be bespoke to your business’s needs.  We don’t believe one size fits all and so we are committed to working with you and getting to know your business and company culture, allowing us to deliver your training with your specific needs in mind.

As well a management training, we offer training programmes for members of staff who do not have responsibility for managing others. This includes:

  • Mental Health in the Workplace
  • Dignity at Work
  • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
  • Insights Discovery (a personality profiling tool)

For more information about the training we offer, get in touch with our team at  [email protected].