As a training company we speak to hundreds of people a day who have a training requirement but decide not to go ahead with it, or simply can’t progress any further. In many cases they discover that the training budget has been frozen, that there are staffing problems or that the business insists it needs all staff to be on the job rather than out at training.
However, it’s counterproductive in all of these cases to stop training. So let’s discuss the top three reasons we hear for why businesses don’t train their staff:
The budget’s frozen
Although the news keeps telling us we’re climbing out of recession and Britain is back in business unfortunately there are some hangovers remaining from darker days. And one of these is the freeze on the budget for training.
It’s common for training and development budgets to be the first thing to go when margins get tight and businesses need to find some extra cash. However, while the freezes are almost instant, it can take a lot longer for them to thaw out. In the meantime, staff are spending years without taking training to further their professional development. This is bad news for employees who consider training and development opportunities as a major motivating factor, but it’s also bad for businesses that are failing to keep their staff up to date with industry development.
In business, if you’re not moving forwards, you’re slipping backwards.
We can’t spare the people
Another hangover of the recession is understaffing, with businesses wary of taking on more people until the economy picked up. But now things are starting to get moving, it’s a challenge to get the staff fast enough to meet demand. This is creating a chronic staff shortage – in 2015 businesses reporting talent shortages was at a seven year peak. Failure to train has exacerbated the trend, with 54% of businesses saying a talent shortage is impacting their ability to meet client needs.
All this means that businesses understand the importance of training, but cannot spare the human resource required to send them to a course. When you don’t have enough people, the time of those you do have becomes even more precious.
We can’t spare the time
Similar to the above reason, some businesses claim they cannot spare the time for training. In some cases businesses are working on projects that require all hands on deck, or perhaps the time they can’t spare is of a specialist member of staff on the team.
However, in all of these cases, failing to make the time doesn’t make the training any less important or necessary. This is especially the case with specialist team members with key skills – if they fail to keep those skills up to date they’ll lose their value both to the business and their own career development. Worse, if there is a particular issue that can only be resolved by training, the cost of even one month’s delay can be staggering, but is rarely calculated or considered.
Why training is so important
Ongoing training and development is absolutely essential for a successful business. New technologies are emerging every day that change the way customers interact with a business, and the way business is carried out. In the past ten years whole industries have transformed beyond recognition, and in order to keep ahead of the curve organisations must invest in training for their staff.
Training staff within their existing roles is more cost effective than hiring an individual already equipped with those skills, but it’s a double win as providing the training also motivates the employee and creates increased loyalty.
Staff that undertake regular training feel more valued and are proven to be more productive than those who do not get training provided. They’re more productive because the work they deliver is often to a higher standard with fewer mistakes, errors or defects and a much higher level of consistency. This can have a knock on effect of improving customer satisfaction and ultimately results in a more profitable, productive business.
And who doesn’t have time for that?
If you’d like to speak to us about how we can help you get around a training budget freeze or to discuss how to make time for training, call us on 0800 066 3749 or click the button below.