Investing in the Future of Your Employees With Skills Based Training

Corporate training programs are one of the most important investments that a company can make. Employees are undeniably the backbone of a business’s success, and the level of their knowledge and skills positively correlates to the performance of an organization. 62% of C-suite leaders claim that the organizations they lead aren’t fully prepared to respond to new tech and talent challenges. In addition, 42% of leaders claim that skill shortages among their employees hold back their ability to respond to change. Clearly, it is more important than ever to prioritize the learning and development of employees to ensure a business is remaining nimble in an ever-changing environment.

When employees are trained on the skills that are most in-demand for the industry they serve, the efficiency and effectiveness of their work begins to skyrocket. For example, if there is a new coding language that begins to be widely accepted in the software engineering industry for its higher degree of efficiency, it is vital that the software engineers at all tech companies become familiarized with this new tool; otherwise, they risk falling behind their competition. It is these training programs that will be responsible for bringing all of the software engineers up to speed on these industry developments.

Besides ensuring that a company remains nimble enough to adapt to major changes in skills and tools in an industry, it is also important to retain top performing employees who have high expectations for career development. Enhancing employee skills and expanding knowledge bases help employees feel as if their development is being prioritized, and they often feel more inclined to stay loyal with a company that they feel they are learning a lot from. In fact, 76% of employees report that they are more likely to stay with a company that offers continuous training, mostly because they know it is less likely that they will become stagnant in their skillset and overall careers.

The most impactful training programs are those that are tailored to the specific needs of a company, including customization based on a company’s industry, the required skills in said industry, the growth objectives of the company, and the existing skill set of the employees and their developmental targets. Generic training programs run the risk of not being as effective, because they aren’t designed to close the specific gaps that a company is facing. For example, failing to identify that employees are consistently struggling with using the data visualization tool Tableau could lead to an expensive training program that focuses on data literacy best practices, but not the specific program itself. This would lead to a lot of wasted time, money, and other resources.

One of the best ways to ensure this customization is to assess the current gaps of a company’s employees, including where they are underperforming and where their skill gaps are growing. The next step of this process is to build the training programs itself, while keeping these key areas in mind. These trainings can be built by using the capabilities of AI, which is able to scan the latest market trends and innovations in rapidly evolving industry landscapes and begin to build out content specific to the company around it. This content can be further curated with the help of expert opinions in each of the relevant fields.

Each program should also be specially designed for the purpose of the training. There are typically three main types of training programs used at different stages in an employees’ tenure: onboarding, upskilling, and reskilling. Onboarding training programs are taken at the beginning of an employee’s tenure at a company and can help expedite their integration into its culture and processes. Upskilling deals with equipping workers with new skills based training and knowledge that are deemed necessary in a joint effort by executives, the program designers, and general market trends. This upskilling can happen at any stage in a career, including early career, mid-level, and executive stages to enhance productivity and innovation. Reskilling is about reinforcing skills that employees have already learned while making sure they are matching the current trends and technological advancements, which helps to future proof an organization.

Clearly, there is much for both employees and companies to gain from a comprehensive and customized training program. Employee satisfaction and retention rates will skyrocket due to employee perception that they are developing in their careers and growing their skill set by working there. On the company side, revenues have been shown to spike by 24% per employee after a company invests in upskilling and retraining their employees. The sooner these programs are integrated into a company, the sooner they will realize these benefits.

Have you read?
Countries: Powerful Passports. Countries: Richest. Countries: Poorest. Countries: Happiest. Countries: Life Expectancy.