The Real Impact of Corporate Training and Development

$355.6 billion.

That’s not the United States’ defense budget or the money spent developing the latest spacecraft. It’s what businesses around the world spent on corporate training in 2015. Despite all that spending, the path to excellent training is not well-trod.

Some companies worry that training will result in an exodus of skilled workers, and others think that employees will see training as intense micromanagement. So what can effective training accomplish for your company in reality?

5 Impacts Corporate Training has on Your Workplace

Here are five ways corporate training can positively benefit your workforce.

1. Employee satisfaction

Good training doesn’t result in employees shaking their heads wondering what the point was. Before you produce an amazing new course, find out what your learners’ training needs are. Designing your course around this kind of analysis lets you focus on developing your employees’ skills effectively without unnecessary information. In turn, employees won’t see training as a time-waster and will come away much more satisfied.

2. Reduced turnover

Training is a great tool to reduce turnover.

As it turns out, training is a great tool to reduce turnover. Rather than finding a new job as soon as they get that super amazing training they always wanted, employees become happier and more productive. Knowing how to do your job is a great feeling, and as job satisfaction improves and motivation increases, employees will stay on. Great training will make your employees perk up and take notice, not slump back in their seats thinking “not this again.”

3. Increased performance

Your employees want training tailored to the tasks they do every day, not a generic, one-size-fits-all course. If you can manage it, you will see morale and productivity improve. Employees can tell what information is important to them and what is not. Rote memorization won’t help improve skills or performance—nobody can memorize everything! Plus, you lose around 90% of what you learned by the time you get back to work anyway. So the question is, how do you signal to your employees that their training is actually valuable?

• Focus the training on vital concepts.
• Follow up with the learners. Review and repetition are key.
• Show your learners where they can access pertinent information to use later.

4. Increased knowledge retention

Training and development impact both company and employee.

People tend to forget what they’ve learned quite quickly, and unfortunately many training courses don’t take this into account. Developing your employees’ skills isn’t a once-and-done activity. Employees should repeat key parts of the training at regular intervals to keep their knowledge sharp. Engaging learners with the training will prevent their new expertise from decaying. You need to make the training relevant, repeat regularly and provide opportunities to apply the content.

5. Acquiring fresh talent

This may come as a surprise, but when you focus on developing your employees’ skills and knowledge base, word gets around. You’ll find people clamoring for a position in your company. The potential for professional growth is key to finding and keeping great new personnel. When you combine this with the other benefits we’ve seen so far, your employees will stay and never want to leave.

Training and development impact both company and employee. Investing in your employees’ future will create loyalty and increase productivity and satisfaction. If these are characteristics you want to see in your personnel, look over these benefits and see where they will take you in your training.