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• How Employee Training Can Improve Your Business Growth Even When Budgets are Tight

How Employee Training Can Improve Your Business Growth Even When Budgets are Tight

written on August 19, 2010 by Dennis Sommer

Experts say, employee training is a simple and proven tactic used by top performers to improve business growth in today’s challenging economy.  Improving business growth is not easy.  This simple strategy can help you achieve your goals.  Employee training is a critical element to your business growth.  Training suffers in lean times, but it remains a critical element in your business success.

When a company must make budget cuts, employee training and education is one area that often takes a direct hit.  While training cutbacks may be intended to control costs, they can undermine a company’s ability to remain on top of new developments, eliminate a company’s competitive edge and make it harder to retain employees.

Here are four tips used by training experts for maintaining effective training efforts when budgets are tight:

1. E-learning
The growing popularity and availability of e-learning make it an obvious starting point for training on a budget.  Employees can work at their own pace, making it more convenient for them and less costly for you.

2. Classroom Training
Despite the convenience of e-learning, sometimes there is no substitute for the face-to-face interaction with an instructor.  Keep in mind that you may not need to hire trainers from outside the organization to lead training sessions; managers within the firm, consultants working on site or recently retired employees might be ideal candidates to step in.

3. Mentoring
Mentoring is another convenient and rewarding way to enhance knowledge transfer among your employees and cultivate future leaders for the company.  These programs can be used to supplement online or classroom instruction, or as the sole method of imparting knowledge.

4. Make It Easy
If workers are expected to complete courses on personal time, they may skip training opportunities entirely.  Be willing to make scheduling accommodations or adjust workloads when necessary. Instead of training sessions lasting 4 to 8 hours, break them down into 1 to 2 hour increments.  These training sessions can be taken during a lunch and learn time or at the end of the day.

The above tips work extremely well when training budgets are tight.  When budgets become more flexible, consider providing tuition reimbursement to your staff.  Robert Half International and CareerBuilder recently reported 61 percent of employees surveyed said tuition reimbursement or subsidized training was the perk they most expected their employers to provide or enhance once the economy improves.

Employee training will help you retain good employees and provide your company with a competitive edge.  This is critical when you are looking for business growth improvement in these challenging times.

 

Dennis Sommer is the CEO of Executive Business Advisers - Dennis is a highly sought after CEO and business improvement adviser providing the guidance you need to take your business to the next level. Call 800-627-6512 for a free consultation.

© Copyrighted by Dennis Sommer - CEO, Executive Business Advisers. All rights reserved.