MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN? OR WORTH EVERY PENNY?
“Your staff are your biggest asset”. This is a term commonly used throughout the business world and we all know
what it means, but what are the consequences to your business of not whole heartedly embracing this and acting on
it? For a company to have a fantastic performance, it needs to have a fantastically performing workforce – and albeit
personalities play a big part in a good workforce, it is not all just down to personality, but a lot can be attributed to
development – and this is where a top class internal training programme is crucial. But often the first thing that is
said about that is “internal training is a costly exercise and not worth the expense”. So let’s look at this statement in
more detail.
Internal training is broken down into several different aspects:
- Induction and training for new starters to embed them into their new roles
- Maintaining and improving the skillsets of existing team members so that they can continue to achieve and
exceed expectations
- Ensuring that staff in specific roles where there is a requirement for CPD are given access to seminars etc
which can give them CPD points
- Training which is tied into your organisation’s structure for appraisals, progression and career development
Internal training is a big financial and time consideration, but let’s look at some of the benefits to you as an
organisation:
- Your staff:
- are happy and confident in their jobs – nobody likes to dread the next question that comes their way which
they may not be able to answer
- have a career structure – there is a route of progression and other roles they can transfer into
- feel valued and rewarded in their roles at your company
- Your customers:
- see that any member of staff they talk to is competent, confident and can help them quickly and efficiently
- see that you value your staff and invest in them, therefore you care about the service your employees give
- are more likely to stay with you, and recommend you to other potential clients
The result of this is that your reputation in the marketplace increases, customers want to buy from you, people want
to come and work for you, staff and customer retention is improved, therefore a reduction in the cost of recruitment
and induction training, potential business growth and a slick, well-oiled operation.
If we look at the reverse argument, what are the points speaking against a good internal training procedure, apart
from the obvious cost savings from not investing in a training programme?
- Interruption to business as usual with staff being taken away from their workplace and workplace (office
space) being occupied with training classes?
- Why invest in training new starters when you don’t know if they will earn the investment in training them?
- Staff who have been trained may just use that on their CV and then leave to go to another company.
- Why invest in training existing staff? They do their job already. Is it really worth training them more?
Having worked for many years in management and training roles, experience has shown that the consequences of
under-estimating the importance of internal training are costly:
- How much time and money do you spend in dealing with HR issues resulting from poor performance, lack of
motivation and complaints about feeling undervalued?
- How much time and money do you spend in recruiting new staff when knowledgeable team members leave
and how much value goes with those team members and the knowledge they have?
If you weigh all of this up against the cost of internal training, internal training most definitely isn’t money down the
drain. It’s absolutely worth every penny!
Watch out for the next article in this series – Appreciate your new assets, and stop depreciating your existing ones!
Tracey Bendel