The Hidden Cost To Your Business Of Not Training Your Staff

Atlas Director and project consultant Diane Lonsdale blogs about the risks businesses take when they fail to invest properly in the training of staff members and the impact this can have on their ability to provide great service to their customers.

This article, on a website aimed at employees with problems in the workplace, interested me as I train end users and am involved in our Application Systems Management department.

Your company will have invested in business software solutions in order to maximise the potential of the business and to ensure that your workflow processes are as lean as possible. One interpretation of lean is to maximise production with the minimum of labour resources. This can only be achieved if the users of the business software solutions know how to use them correctly and in the most effective way.

When your company invested in these solutions you will also have invested in specialist training, delivered in a way to ensure the solutions were used correctly and in the most effective way, but what happens when these trained staff leave your employment?

Do you have dedicated members of staff who can train any new employees effectively in all aspects of the systems they are expected to use? Or is it that the incumbent staff member simply spends a few hours showing their replacement what they think they need to know, and will more than likely just hand over the sections of knowledge that are pertinent to their job role rather than the whole spectrum of the solution. Is the potential value of the software diluted during this 'training'?

Can you afford not to invest in initial training or indeed refresher training on a regular basis?

Cost is the main reason cited for not implementing this process but if you don’t then the value of the original investment is diminished.

It may be more cost effective to ensure key members of your workforce have the necessary skills to train new employees, and this is not just about your IT solutions, it also needs to be your business processes and Health and Safety Regulations.

Another reason cited by Senior Management for not investing in staff training is that if they normally have a high staff turnaround then the investment is wasted, as soon as the employees have been trained then they leave the business and therefore incur high costs. Research has proven the opposite to this theory. In an article by Jonathan Moules in the Financial Times, he quotes the latest piece of research on the subject,

“The biggest motivator for 43 per cent of staff surveyed was having a passion for their job or company. Seven out of 10 workers said that an employer’s commitment to staff training is important in helping them feel valued, and 69 per cent said it was important in making them want to work hard.”

Training employees on a regular basis ensures your investments - in software, in people, in the very core of your business processes - don't diminish and enable your workplace to remain productive, proactive and happy. Training isn't an 'optional extra', it is a must have which empowers workers and ensures customers are satisfied.