5 Reasons to Make Employee Education a Priority

If you’re not offering employees education opportunities then you might want to reconsider. Today’s generation of workers have put employee education and development high on their list of the most-desired benefits that a company can offer.

Offering educational opportunities has a wide variety of benefits for both employees and companies, and gives a competitive advantage from a recruiting standpoint. The right educational offering just might be the deciding factor for candidates who are being sourced for similar jobs with matching salary packages.

And this doesn’t have to be expensive. While some companies can afford to help their employees’ take graduate courses, for example, others simply provide in-house employee education opportunities or give employees a chance to learn outside of work by attending relevant conferences, seminars and trainings.

It’s an expense none-the-less. But before you discard this idea, let the data speak for itself. Having the right data to back up your initiatives always makes it easier to get additional funding and leadership support. Check out these five data-based reasons why you should make employee education a priority in your business.

1. Employees want special training to advance their careers

Of almost 4,300 workers, a massive 74% felt that they weren’t achieving their full potential at work and, as a result, would value access to more development opportunities.

What type of incentives do employees want in our modern world? In addition to usual wants, like higher salaries and better work-life balance, employees are looking for special in-house training and skills development to help advance their careers.

By offering employees additional training opportunities, you’re investing in the advancement of their careers, while adding more value to your business. The more successful and capable your employees are, the better your business will be.

2. Offering training and development increases employee retention

7 out of 10 people say that training and development opportunities influence their decision to stay with a company.

As a manager or HR professional, you’re well aware of the costs associated with employee turnover. As a reminder: it costs upwards of $4,129 to hire an employee, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM’s) new Human Capital Benchmarking Report.

Offering employees external or internal training and development opportunities improves employee satisfaction, which in turn is likely to increase loyalty and decrease costly turnover. As you consider new retention strategies for your organization, find ways to weave in stronger employee education opportunities.

3. Employees are already learning on their own time

Respondents revealed that an average of seven hours per week of their own time is devoted to learning.

Did you realize your employees are already working hard to learn more and expand their skill set? While the survey cited above is specific to developers, most other employees are doing the same. A 2017 Udemy report found that 95 percent of millennials believe learning is key to their career success and are willing to spend their own time and money to do it.

By offering employee education instead, you help reduce personal costs for employees, which could outweigh salary issues or lack of other benefits, like health insurance or 401k options.

4. Most HR managers don’t think their training is good enough

62% of HR managers believe that they are not doing a good job meeting the learner’s needs. 

Is your training program actually setting your employees up for success? Most employee training and development programs fall short of providing value. Investing in a comprehensive educational training program will not only help HR managers be more effective with this initiative, but set both HR departments and employees up for future success.

5. Offering educational training and development increases profits

Companies that offer comprehensive training programs experienced 24% higher profit margin than those who spend less on training. 

If you want to make more money—and what business doesn’t—invest in employee training and education. While this can be costly, it’s a sound investment that surely pays off. To benchmark the costs, the same ADT report found that average cost per learning hour is $82; use this to determine what you can afford. If you see improvements in the business’s bottom line, invest more.

Find the budget for employee education

There are many reasons why learning is critical to your employees and company as a whole, and these are some of the most important ones to consider. When you invest in employee education, the company improves and your employees are happier, which means you may experience less turnover and even see higher profits—a win-win for everyone.

Don’t lose top talent due to a lack of educational offerings. Learn how to engage your employees today by downloading Achievers’ white paper, “The New Digital Workforce: A Guide to Engaging Today’s Employees.”