Tag Archive for: reasons to invest in your employees

Why You Should Invest in Your Employees

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These days’ workers are looking for more than traditional benefits, vacation time and a one hour lunch break. They want to be engaged, challenged and feel like the company that they give so much of themselves to will give more than a paycheck. Since employee training and team building events are less expensive than employee turnovers, education, training and opportunities to offer a creative outlet are great ways to re-energize, empower and bring the best out of your workforce.

Benjamin Franklin

Our wise and witty founding Father once said, “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” If this is true for general education, it yields the same result for continuing education. Stagnant employee minds can breed not only mediocre performance and work culture attitudes, but a mediocre financial outcome.

A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers study found that 35% of workers consider professional development programs to be the top benefit offered by their employers and one of the most engaging.  Your people are your most important asset, so investing in their development is critical.  Two results of a Gallup research study recently caught our attention:

  • Disengaged employees cost U.S. companies $370 billion annually through lost productivity.
  • Engaged employees are 22 times more likely to be an advocate for their organization than disengaged employees.

Translation: the level of employee engagement has an incredible impact on your financial performance.

A Spark of Creativity

Another way to increase employee engagement would be to refresh their mindset.  Have you ever tried to solve a problem, complex or not, and found your mind blank, unable to solve much of anything? This may be because you are thinking too specifically and relying on past successes. Mixing up environments may help shake the thinking block. Harvard Business School Professor Michael Norton examined thinking and habit, “If you’ve done something the same way for 10 years, it might be time to reconsider.”

Providing employees with the opportunity to think and experience new events in areas that don’t have much to do with their job function, may actually help them with their job. Psychology professor Charlan Nemeth of the University of California at Berkeley has said that this “demonstrates that exposure to unfamiliar perspectives can foster creativity.” Company volunteering, workshops that appeal to the employee not their job description, and breaks throughout the day or work year allow the mind to wander, see situations in a new light and refresh the individual to perform their function with a fresh perspective.

To satisfy the whole person, increase employee retention and keep productivity operating on high levels, your workforce needs to know that you, their employer, want them to increase their knowledge and experience new challenges. Meaningful employment today is more than a job description, it’s a key to personal/ professional identity and purpose.

 

Author: Elyse Lopez

Making the Most of Your Employee Training

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Hold on to your hats because it’s time for all employees to get their dose of training! Your company has found reason to give its workers more knowledge on a particular subject, whether it is the integration of a new company wide program or leadership skills.

Flight Restriction

Training usually ends up being the afterthought of doing anything new. A lot of companies think that their employees are super human robots that can pick up and go with something like a fish to water. It’s time for a reality check, though. People need to learn about the new before they can become comfortable with it. But with so many different training approaches, what is the best way to make this happen?

Take Off

According to a survey done by the Chapman Alliance, the average time it takes to create a single hour for a training session is 43 hours. That is almost two days of work for an hour of material. That is why it is so important to know exactly how to approach a training course before it takes place. I mean, you wouldn’t submerge your hand in water before testing the temperature first right? The type of training is decided upon based on the people who are receiving the information. If the employees are scattered around the state, you obviously want to create a training program that involves SWAT teams breaking into their homes at night, kidnapping them, and taking them to a remote facility in South America that has a chalk board and desks. The easier method, however, is just utilizing the internet.

Brightwing and i3Logic strive hard to find the best possible courses of action for a training class. With technology today, the realm of possibilities for learning has grown substantially. Instructor led face-to-face training is not the only way to go.

E-learning initiative (online training) has become extremely convenient and popular as well. It is separated into the three following methods depending on how much interaction is needed:

Level 1: Low Interaction. This process involves graphics and written info for one to read online.

Level 2: Medium Interaction: This process involves videos or recorded interaction.

Level 3: High Interaction. This process involves interaction with avatar interviewing.

You can also blend the two methods together and do instructor led training online with group meetings and discussions in a virtual classroom. Don’t forget your virtual paper airplanes and spit wads when you log on!

If a small amount of employees need training and are all in the same general area, instructor led training works wonders. It allows for a great amount of interaction and knowledge sharing between employees and instructor. However, a lot of companies find it difficult to provide physical training because their employees are not all in the same place. This is where customized online training programs come in handy. The level of e-learning depends on the motivation of the employees. If they don’t want to do it, then a higher level of interaction is needed to keep them interested. Shiny objects are advised as people are generally attracted to them.

Maintaining Altitude

So there you have it! Now you know what learning solutions companies go through. Are you doing all that you can to make sure your employees are trained properly and efficiently? It is a long process that must be molded to fit each individual situation. In fact, I think I’ll end this blog so I can go work on my online employee potty training class!