Many Employers tend to only recruit, and subsequently hire, Employees who do not need any additional training. These Employees start working immediately and will often not need any additional training to enable them to perform the required duties.

Candidates that indicate either on their resumes and/or during interviews that they do not have experience in a particular field, but that they ‘are willing to learn’ will not be invited to an interview nor appointed

Why are Employers reluctant to train Employees?

Time is money and in this tough economic climate, training is viewed by most Employers as wasting the precious time available to  make money.

Other Employers are of the view that, should they put in the time and effort to train either their current Employees or new incumbents, these Employees will leave the Employer to seek greener pastures elsewhere once they have been provided with additional training.

The Employer and business will thus not reap the benefits of training. The Employer will then have to start the process of recruitment and training afresh. This results in a seemingly never-ending cycle that is not benefitting the Employers or their businesses at all.

Why should Employers train their Employees?

Just as businesses invest in capital and infrastructure resources to enable the business to grow, training will be seen as investing in the human capital resource of the business. This investment will take time and energy but will add value to business in the long run seeing as the staff retention will be much lower.

Employees that are provided with outsourced or that are trained inhouse, will feel valued and would thus be hesitant to resign from their current employment. These Employees will be loyal to their Employer which in return could lead to them being more productive. The up-skilling will further add more value to the business in that the Employee will be capable of doing so much more than what they were initially hired to do. Better equipped Employees can assist the Employer in expanding their businesses and thus employing more Employees.

By training Employees, the Employer will further aid Employees’ personal growth and development which will in turn alleviate poverty and help the Employees’ families to become financially independent.  

Training can be done weekly, monthly and/or quarterly. It does not have to be time-consuming or be seen as wasting time. A training schedule can be drawn up with different Senior Employees imparting their skill, knowledge and experience on various topics to the more Junior Employees.

How would the Employer select which Employees to train?

Some Employees will not have the training and experience that their counter-parts have, due to lack of resources and opportunity. The Employer will be able to identify Employees that are capable of more should they be given the opportunity and financial assistance to undergo further training.

This can be done in various ways. The Managers and/or Supervisors can inform the Employer that certain Employees have potential that needs to be unlocked by providing training. Assessments can be done to see what the Employees might actually be capable of and where there is a lack of knowledge or understanding. Questionnaires can also be given to Employees so that they can indicate should they be interested in undergoing further training.

Conclusion

Training will add value to the Employer’s business by creating more well-rounded Employees. Further, these trained Employees will be loyal and more productive. The Employer will spend less time disciplining Employees due to the fact that the Employees have been upskilled to such an extent that they know exactly what is expected of them. Time will not be wasted to correct Employee’s behaviour and Employees who are content, tend to not misbehave.

Employees will further perform their duties and responsibilities to the best of their abilities because they feel valued by their Employer. Training will assist the Employer’s business in retaining staff and will thus aid in the growth of the business. Not only will the Employer benefit from employing better skilled Employees, but the Employees themselves will be given opportunities to grow and prosper which they might not have had otherwise.

Training Employees is thus time well spent. Let us at SchoemanLaw Inc. show you how training your Employees can benefit your business.

Written by Helena Roodt, SchoemanLaw Inc