In any area of business, a company is only as good as the people it comprises. The employees are the face, the engine, and the soul of a company; they create the company culture and advance the company’s interests.
As a business leader, you need to constantly be thinking about your employees and the future of your business. You need to focus on building a great team that will help you make the most of every opportunity. Doing that means hiring well, but that’s not all that it means — it also means being smart about training. Being smart includes not opting for mass training.
In the tech industry, the financial services industry, and so many other major areas of business, training is an ongoing concern. As technology updates and your business grows, you’ll need to make judicious use of training in order to craft the team your priorities demand. Here’s everything that you need to know.
Your ideal workforce
Your ideal workforce is effective, efficient, and committed to your business’ vision and to a healthy company culture. They should be able to work quickly as a team, but stay diverse and opinionated enough to drive important discussions that will lead your business to better answers and smarter strategies.
That means hiring employees who are smart, detail-oriented, and modest. At the same time, you need to choose confident and driven individuals with leadership qualities. Don’t make the all-too-common mistake of hiring non-threatening “followers” who will be competent in their current role but ill-equipped for the bigger responsibilities that you may wish to give them in the future. Avoid bad attitudes and other warning signs, and focus on hiring people that can grow along with your company.
Why it pays to train and promote great professionals
Great employees aren’t born — they’re made. And while you need to be smart about hiring self-starters and brilliant professionals, you should remember that your business has a role to play in advancing your employees’ careers and growing their skills.
Training your employees to properly use company software or make use of best practices will make them more deserving of promotions and raises. In that sense, it will cost you money. But make no mistake: training employees and promoting from within will give you a more cost-effective workforce than hiring outside experts would, and keeping employees’ careers moving will keep them happy and cut down on costly employee turnover.
Investing in efficient and effective training
The key is to make sure that you’re building better employees within your organization. And according to the experts at tech-focused employee training organization Accelebrate, that means investing in training and professional development for your workers.
On-the-job training is all well and good, and you should hope to find workers dedicated enough to better themselves outside of work. But when you choose the training programs, you’re in control of the direction in which your employees grow. If you train the right people at the right time, your investment will be great for your business in the long term.
When to seek training for yourself and your team
So when should you seek training? Investing in training for your employees — or yourself, for that matter — is rarely a bad idea, but there are certainly some times that make more sense for training than others.
Investing in training makes the most sense when your team is complete and feels relatively stable, so that you can cover everyone with one training session. Training is also important when there are updates to major software that your company uses, or when you switch providers (for instance, moving from Google’s cloud services to Amazon Web Services).
Time things right, and you’ll get cost-effective training that will leave you with a more talented group of employees. And remember: when your employees get better, so does your business.