No matter how finely tuned ideas are or how precise a business strategy is, when it comes to creating a successful business, employee retention and recruitment are crucial. Businesses must attract the right people with the right skills to do the right things, all while learning and understanding the ins and outs of the business. And as the job market continues to be volatile, it’s critical that organizations hire and retain the right talent.
Although leaders now recognize the positive impact of effective workplace training on employee retention, satisfaction and productivity, many employee training and development programs are misaligned to learners’ wants and needs. In fact, according to a survey report released by Emergn in October 2022, only 23% of learners and 22% of leaders reported that they viewed their organization’s current workplace training as extremely effective. Organizations must make learning a part of their culture and tailor learning programs to each team’s wants, needs and goals for maximum engagement for each employee.
Cultivating a Learning Culture
Attracting the strongest candidates to join a team requires cultivating a strong culture — and it’s hard to develop a company culture with a high turnover of staff. When valuable colleagues leave, they take important company knowledge with them. This can result in setbacks for teams and feelings of frustration from having to pick up the slack left behind. When new team members are hired, it’s also impossible to know whether they will stabilize or destabilize the organization until they are settled in.
Deploying work-based learning and creating an engaging learning journey can strengthen team dynamics and camaraderie. The more a team collaborates on work-based learning, the more they feel comfortable contributing to the conversation, which can then foster increased engagement with the company. Work-based learning provides a supportive environment that motivates employees to contribute to the overall company’s success.
What Makes a Learning Journey Engaging and High-Quality?
When organizations’ training programs fail, it is often because teams do not utilize modern training solutions for today’s workplace, and more often than not, employees do not have the time to complete them. Organizations must remember there’s no “one-size-fits-all” learning journey — employees want the flexibility to learn where and how they prefer to, and to take an active role in their own development with individualized approaches to learning.
Building a high-quality learning journey requires making sure the time, tools and resources are available for all employees to fill their skills gaps. By offering training that is relevant to each employee, you can help employees learn new concepts while on the job, without overloading them with irrelevant learning. Experimenting with different formats, collecting frequent feedback and speaking directly with employees is the best way to build an impactful learning journey for employees and the organization.
Increasing Job Satisfaction and Employee Retention
When organizations make learning a part of their culture and empower employees on their learning journey, job satisfaction increases and self-esteem can improve. According to Emergn’s survey report, 75% of learners say strong workplace training has a very high or high impact on their decision to stay with an employer. The report also found major benefits from workplace training for employees, 65% have observed increased productivity, 56% have observed increased capacity to adapt to new ways of working and 55% have observed increased job satisfaction and employee morale.
While employee expectations and work environments may be changing, fostering individual growth is the best way to attract and retain the talent organizations need to succeed. Successful learning programs help organizations upskill the employees they already have, retaining company knowledge while avoiding the cost of hiring expensive new talent.
Due to the unstable job market in some industries, creating high-quality learning programs is of the utmost importance and can offer a solution to the costly issue of employee retention. By making sure each employee is given the tools and resources to be engaged in their learning journey, companies can build a strong workplace learning culture from the ground up. Organizations will benefit from a more engaged workforce empowered with the right skills needed to achieve business goals.
