“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit “– Aristotle

Employee development is the collaboration of the employee along with the employer to improve their existing skills, knowledge and abilities as individuals and groups.

It is of utmost importance that employees keep themselves abreast with the latest developments in the industry so as to get ahead of the constant changes seen. It doesn’t matter if it is a profitable enterprise, a government agency, or a non-profit corporation, development of the employee has both indirect and direct impact on efficiency.

Organization need to provide focused attention on how they provide these corporate training programs and more importantly make it part of their culture of continuous improvement for their employees.

Employee development programs can happen for the following reasons in an organization

1. Retention & Attraction of Employees:

According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workforce Learning Report a whopping 93% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their careers. Skill trainings and development is no longer reserved for only certain positions. It signals that the employer values their people and are successful. Some of the key areas to focus on here would be on certain soft skills like leadership training, communication, manager training , women training , collaboration, change management etc.

Having a reputation as a good employer who cares enough to provide corporate Training Programs for them is great both for how your customer will perceive your company as well as for hiring new employees.

Employee Engagement programs helps bring in good people. Offering training, continuing education, conference attendance, seminar involvement or even something as simple as a book allowance with the consensus that you expect them to fully participate will go a long way in attracting employees who are looking to develop and better themselves. That’s a HR to hire and keep at all costs.

2. Create a Strong Talent Pool:

Every organization has talents that required to be closely nurtured and provide significant development to take on future leadership roles.

Skill training programs should develop and equip your current set of employees for possible future promotion from daily worker to management as well as show which employees have the aptitude for such a promotion.

It is common to see companies advertise for top positions such as senior managers and top management. This is because they cannot find someone from within to take up such a position. This is due to the simple reason that there is insufficient corporate training programs and right initial hiring to prepare them for these positions. Employee engagement programs bridges this gap by providing the employees with the necessary behavioral skills and functional competencies to take up these positions as and when they arise.

Hiring from within saves the company the time then hiring from outside will take to get used to the organization’s culture. In spite of the advantages, not all long-term employees are ready for such a step up. So promoting them when they aren’t could lead to problems. Skill training and development helps to eliminate this problem by equipping the employees with the necessary skills early enough.

3. Provide Positive Engagement:

It is important that all employees are 100% engaged in their work duties and provide exceptional contribution to the company’s growth. To make sure the employees have the right habits towards doing their daily work it is very important that they are taught the best practices in their current job.

There might be days when the employees are not fully utilized due to lesser work. And it is well known that an empty mind is a devils kitchen so it is important that during this time how they utilize their time in a constructive manner without boredom setting in. Here various corporate training programs especially the on-the-job trainings are very important.

4. Make them productive:

A well trained, confident and engaged employee is going to deliver better work for the company in the long run. This is going to save the organisation a lot of money.

Instead of hiring people from outside, the company can use personnel from within since they are more efficient and proficient. Using employees from within is in the long run going to save the company a lot of money while at the same time earning more from the employees increased efficiency and expertise. It’s also not a given that employees from elsewhere will come in and make the desired impact.

In the long run employee engagement programs has the potential to increase output of employees leading to increased sales and higher profits for the company as a result. This is the reason why employee development should be viewed as an investment instead of an expense.

5. Helps in managing change in the environment:

Change is a constant in today’s VUCA world and we need to empower the tools to our people to adopt change. We can use corporate training and development programs to help employees go through the various changes in their professional and personal life. This will in turn help them to turn more understanding towards company’s goals and they will be much better in sharing its vision with extended teams, customers and suppliers.

Skill training programs cannot happen without proper planning. The business needs might be shifting according to customer and industry and therefore the training that worked yesterday might not work tomorrow, hence planning for the change is important.

An employee development plan that is going to work necessarily forces you to consider the future path of your company in line with its vision and changes around you. This forces companies to think ahead of the curve for your business every day

Whatever be the change the one thing constant is that HR training and development programs are there to stay and companies need to use them extensively to stay on top!