You might expect us here at Frosch Learning to say that staff training is a worthwhile investment rather than a dead cost, but there really is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is the former rather than the latter – as well as that the right training will become even more important in 2017.

Of course, an obvious reason to invest in training for your business is to upgrade your workforce’s skills – including in such areas as sales, leadership and key account management, which are specialities of ours here at Frosch Learning. This, in turn, helps to make your business more competitive.

Training helps to keep your firm in front of the chasing pack

It is especially difficult for any business to become more competitive if its rivals are marching ahead – and there’s evidence to suggest that employers have been taking employee training more seriously in recent years.

According to one recent study cited by the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), the proportion of employees given a structured personal development plan had reached 42%, which was 8% higher than a year earlier. That same survey found that 58% of respondents felt their employer was taking their personal development seriously, up from 52% 12 months earlier.

The survey also discovered that of the 66% of employers that already trained their staff, 47% of them wanted to do more training, and that even of the 34% of employers that didn’t train, 29% wished to do so. Such statistics indicate just how proactive you will need to be as an employer with your approach to training heading into 2017.

More training can improve employee retention

Putting money towards training for your staff can pay dividends.  Stephen MacLaren, Head of Regional Sales Employee Benefits at Al Futtaim Willis, has observed in an article for the Entrepreneur website that the happier workers are, the likelier they are to stay with their employer.

Training can boost employees’ happiness; as MacLaren further notes, research by Middlesex University’s Institute for Work Based Learning found that 74% of UK workers wished they had received more job training and felt their full potential was out of their grasp.

The message is clear: if you have been deterred from delivering ongoing employee training due to the fear of a high turnover rate, you have good reason to think again. While, on the one hand, you might still be convinced that certain staff would long stay even without any further training, there remain other good reasons to make such training a priority in 2017.

Even workers regard training as crucial

MacLaren has also noted that according to another survey, 70% of workers consider training to be crucial for developing skills directly related to their job, while 66% expected training to improve their performance in their role. Perhaps most vitally, however, 68% believed that workplace training was still relevant regardless of the worker’s rank or time in service.

So, as you can see, there are always opportunities to make a big difference to your business’s effectiveness and success by investing in the right training.  Turn to our team here at Frosch Learning for useful and well-run corporate training courses, and you can rest assured that our track record has taken in all kinds of companies  – no stone has been left unturned in this regard.