Posted by Why do businesses train their employees? Most of the time, it’s for practical reasons, like getting new employees up to speed with the latest technology, keeping up with industry standards, or showing how to use a new coffee maker.
All of these are important parts of your relationship with your employees. But in reality, most companies don’t know how training their employees is necessary and how it can be measured to help the business.
Here are 5 reasons why you should train your team in technology:
1. Make staff more productive.
Even if your company has the latest technology, it doesn’t help if your employees don’t know how to use it.
When you teach your team how to use a new app or device, most will figure out how to work faster and better with it. So, they’ll be able to do more work with less effort.
A study by the National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce (EQW) found that increasing the workforce’s education level increased output more than increasing the value of the equipment.
In particular, a 10% increase in these two things led to an 8.6% increase in productivity for education but only a 3.4% increase for better equipment.
Aside from that, training gives workers a chance to learn more skills. And when people have more skills, they can solve problems at work and do a better job. Also, well-trained employees know more than one skill, making them more flexible and able to do jobs outside their core roles.
Before buying a new system or piece of equipment, department leaders should always think about what kind of training the team will need to use the latest tools and what training choices the provider offers.
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2. Reduce mistakes, missed chances, and missed deadlines.
Your business will benefit significantly from having well-trained workers. If you give these people the education, information, and skills they need, they can do their jobs well and correctly. And there will be fewer mistakes in your business. That means there won’t be any more data loss or wrong study of data.
People are more likely to get upset at work if they don’t have the proper training and feel like they aren’t being used enough by the company. In other words, they will make many mistakes and not meet the basic requirements.
Most managers think giving their workers better skills will make them look for new or better jobs elsewhere, but that’s not true. Instead, good training makes workers feel appreciated and happy in their careers, which makes them more loyal to a company that invests in their growth.
Also, a job with training opportunities will likely get more qualified applicants.
Employees who have had good training are better at their jobs, making it easier for them to find information while working.
It also helps eliminate unnecessary work, like when people work slowly or make mistakes because they aren’t used to a tool. When workers know to do a job right the first time, they spend less time and money fixing errors.
3. Less chance of making expensive technology mistakes
Training your employees allows you to build risk management into every part of your business. This is especially important regarding data management, data control, and stopping common cyber threats.
If an employee doesn’t understand how a system works, they could accidentally delete a lot of important company data. This could affect your business in a lot of ways.
First, it might not be possible to get it back, which could mean the company’s end. Second, bringing it back typically costs a lot if it is possible. During that time, your business will stop running, and you’ll lose even more money because you won’t be able to serve clients or meet goals.
When employees mess with processes they don’t fully understand, it can affect routines or the reports of their coworkers. This causes a lot of trouble. Inaccurate forecasting in the accounting department, for example, could have an effect that spreads to other areas.
You also risk breaking laws about intellectual property or data security.
You can protect yourself from these risks by making rules and policies for data control that tell your employees how to use the system and its data best.
Employees will forget what they learned in training if they don’t use a system or some of its features often. Make a private knowledge base where training materials can be stored and used in the future.
4. The need for tech support will decrease.
Usually, the IT staff of your company takes care of every technology problem an employee has. This method can make the IT staff too busy because they must answer every ticket a worker submits.
What if you taught your workers the basics of PC maintenance so they could fix some of the problems that keep coming up on their own?
It would help them work faster and give the IT technicians more time to focus on other important parts of the business, like keeping software up to date or repairing the equipment.
5. Helps the team adapt well.
Adaptability is a critical soft skill that most companies look for in their employees. Adaptability means that a worker should be able to respond quickly to new ideas, changes in the business, new trends, and other things.
Training your team on the latest technology helps them advance in their careers. It allows them to adapt faster because they have a “growth mindset.”
For example, you teach your workers how to use chatbots to quickly answer customers’ questions in customer service. In that case, they’ll find it easy to learn how to use AI in lead generation.
Training employees is important in every field. Putting money into this training might initially seem expensive, but the results are worth it.
When trained, workers know they are important and will try to work hard and stay loyal. And having a happy team can significantly affect your company’s productivity.
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Anisa is a writer who focuses on career and lifestyle topics in an effort to motivate both job searchers and employers towards greater fulfillment in their professional lives.
Reach me at anisa@jobstore.com.