By 
People are designed for evolution. We want to learn; we want to be better than we were before. While change can be scary, it’s also an essential part of living a healthy and fulfilling life. If you stay in the same place for too long and nothing changes for you, then you’re going to mentally (if not physically) check out. This happens all the time in workplaces where employees don’t feel like they are learning and don’t feel like they are progressing.
Unfortunately, you cannot always give employees a promotion or even a raise. This is true even for big businesses, let alone small ones. However, what you can do instead is offer them training and development. If they feel like they have a future with you, not only will they work harder, but they’ll also usually work for you for longer. Everyone may eventually move on but curating a positive learning environment is good in both the short-term and in the long-term, making is=t a worthwhile investment no matter what.
Why You Should Train Your Employees
Training your employees is an essential step to the onboarding process. Your employee needs to know what you’re doing and the expectations that you have for them. If you stop after the onboarding process, however, you’re failing your employees. You don’t have the best approach, nor do you know everything so it is best to get outside training to improve sills. If you want to do more with less, then you need to invest in your employees.
How to Offer Continuous Training and Development
There are many ways that you can offer training and development, and many of the options aren’t budget intensive. For just a small amount you can sponsor your employees so that they learn and bring new knowledge and skills to the table. You can help them better themselves, so that they can play a more integral part to your team.
Online Courses
Online courses are the perfect, budget-friendly way to train and develop each team member in the content they are interested in. There are so many different options as well. Start first with training that will help improve the safety and efficiency of your workplace. There are online health and safety courses available that can immediately work to improve your office or workshop environment from day one.
Not all courses need to be about compliance, however. Your assistant may have dreams of becoming a marketing executive, and you can sponsor them through an online course. Many courses today are even subscription-based, meaning that the faster someone gets through the content, the cheaper it is. You can give each employee sponsorship for three months to complete a course of their choosing per year. It’s a great benefit that can actually improve the skill set of your staff, giving you more talent than when you started off with as well as incentive for them to stay.
In-Person Workshops
Workshops are a great way to train your employees. One of the most common and popular workshops are team-building ones, but that’s not the only way you can train your team. There are workshops designed to help people be more confident, better public speakers, better negotiators, and so on. You don’t need to sponsor every employee, just those who need to use those skills and who aren’t quite up to scratch yet.
Events
Events are so worthwhile to attend. Not only can you hear from leaders in your field and learn directly from them, but you can also advertise your business through networking. When it comes to events, there are several different kinds. There are events you will want to take your employees to in an official capacity, online events, and events that occur after-hours.
While you should choose one or two conferences or talks to take your employees to per year, that isn’t the only way you can help your employees learn. Create or even sign-up to a newsletter that outlines the events and talks in your city, and then create a sign-up sheet for those that want to go together to each one (on their own time). You can even set aside a small budget for tickets, to encourage your employees to attend, learn, and take that knowledge back to you.
Knowledge Exchange
If you want to get the most out of your investment, have your employees exchange knowledge. If someone completes a course that others wanted to learn about, for example, you can have that employee create a presentation or report (or even just publish their notes) so that everyone can benefit and, at the very least, know the spark notes of the topic that their co-worker now has a more in-depth understanding of.
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