When it comes to training, some employers are concerned that they may incur the cost of training an employee and that employee may leave. This is a common dilemma for a business that is considering skilled training for its team. It is a fact that some employees will leave after being trained, but it is still worth the effort on your part to train your team.

There are a number of advantages for a company that trains its team. This post will highlight three of those benefits.

Reduced turnover - A business that promotes skilled training may retain its employees longer than a business that chooses not to. Employees are more likely to remain with an employer if there are opportunities to learn new skills and keep up with industry trends. Likewise, an employee would usually feel valued and appreciated by his employer's willingness to invest in him, which may lead to higher job satisfaction. In many cases, higher job satisfaction also results in reduced turnover and higher productivity.

Increased efficiency – Training allows employees to learn skills, techniques and tricks to help them complete everyday tasks more efficiently. As a former Project Manager, the ability to manipulate an Excel worksheet using “sorting” or “add” functions in Excel allowed my team to process incentive claims in a timely manner. This resulted in more claims being processed in a shorter period of time.

Let's say a manufacturing company purchased a new equipment to replace an older, less efficient machine. The new equipment may increase the company's production from 100 widgets per day by the older machine to 150 widgets. By properly training its employees  on the new equipment, the manufacturing company will likely reduce the number of errors made, which consequently will result in more widgets being available for sale.

Increased revenue – Using the example above, if the manufacturing company increases its production, it will likely decrease the amount of time required to fill an order. If the business is able to produce a larger amount of its widgets in a shorter time-frame, it has an opportunity to increase the number of orders it fills. Ultimately, this will result in an increase in the amount of revenue the business earns because it can cater to a greater number of customers.

Here's something to think about: If you decided there is no need to periodically train your team, that decision may lead to an increase in employee turnover, a decrease in productivity and possibly a decrease in revenues. The question then becomes, “how can a company grow without training its team?”

BIO: Margo Thomas is the owner of Marlynn Consulting, where she helps businesses reduce their training cost by 50%. She has worked with Florida economic incentives for ten years and has assisted in confirming over 50,000 Florida jobs and recommending over $200 million in tax credits/tax refunds on behalf of the State of Florida.

Tags: Workforce Training Grants Florida Grants Economic Incentives