At Rhea + Kaiser, it’s not uncommon to hear the acronym ABL. It means always be learning. The desire to continue to develop our skills is embedded in our agency culture. But it’s not just something we talk about. We make it a priority. We encourage our team members to take advantage of webinars and conferences and share what they learned with the rest of the organization. And we require all employees to level up their knowledge with certifications during R+K Summer School.
Why do we prioritize learning and development across the agency? Not only is it necessary to ensure that our employees share the latest thinking and best ideas, it’s also key to employee satisfaction and engagement and helps attract new talent. It’s a win-win for our team members, our agency, and our clients.
To remain a competitive employer, it’s important to recognize how the employment landscape has changed. Employees require more than just a paycheck for job satisfaction. That’s why investing in employee development is critical for every organization. We’ve combed through the research to summarize the best information on this topic, including the top 6 benefits of a robust and well-defined employee development program.
Employee Development Improves Performance
A development plan enables your team to stay up to date with the latest industry knowledge and best practices in a measurable way. That, in turn, improves performance and efficiency. Employees recognize this. According to a report from HR Vision, 59% of employees believe that more training improves their performance. Additionally, a report published in The International Journal of Business and Management Research indicates that 90% of employees surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that training and development programs improved their job performance.
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When employees improve their skills or competencies They can handle tasks more effectively, which leads to faster project completion and higher output. Plus, a company with a strong emphasis on continued learning creates a culture that encourages new ideas and opens collaboration and idea sharing. It nurtures a culture where ideas identify new solutions or improve on old processes or procedures. Capitalizing on this can help companies stay ahead of the changing marketplace.
Employee Development Helps You Keep Up With Technological Advancements
Job responsibilities are changing even when job titles aren’t. According to LinkedIn, skills sets for jobs have changed by around 25% since 2015. By 2027, this number is expected to double. This creates a significant skills gap.
Take AI as an example. Despite a surge in roles requiring AI skills and more than 50% of employees believing that the skill set will be essential for their role, only 1 in 10 employees were offered AI training in 2023, according to data from Randstad.
Training initiatives focused on in-demand and emerging technologies relevant to your industry allow both your employees and company to prepare for and embrace industry transformations and stay competitive within the market. This means you continue to have an agile workforce that can adapt to the evolving market.
Employee Development Improves Employee Satisfaction and Retention
Employees want to progress as professionals and enhance their skills and knowledge. Consider these findings:
Investment in development demonstrates commitment to employee growth and builds loyalty and motivation. What’s more, organizations often see further benefits by pairing learning opportunities with internal mobility. LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning report found that employees who move into new roles internally are 3.5x more likely to be engaged than those who stay in their current roles.
What’s the bottom line with all these stats and studies? Engagement and development go hand in hand. When employees feel their work stretches and challenges them, they are more likely to be motivated and creative than employees who feel stuck. This decreases turnover and drives better business outcomes.
Employee Development Helps Reduce Costs
Lower turnover means spending less on recruitment and onboarding expenses. That can be important for your company’s bottom line. It’s estimated that replacing an employee or hiring in a new role costs 3 to 4 times the value of a new hire’s salary. As we noted above, employees who feel valued and invested are less likely to leave. Development is a key element.
Initial investment in training programs give employees essential skills and knowledge. Allowing them to have continuous training to keep up with marketplace demands means that they will be ready to tackle new challenges when the needs arise. That’s a better position for employers than having to quickly play catch up on internal skills or having to look to for the skillset externally.
Employee Development Nurtures Future Leaders
Implementing leadership development programs allows your organization to build its bench. By targeting high-potential team members for training opportunities, youc an foster internal skill development and competence. With a deep bench, you can look internally to fill managerial or executive roles.
In many cases, looking within your organization makes more sense. An internal promotion means the person filling the role knows the business operations and organizational structure. That saves time and means they understand and are capable of complementing the goals of the company.
Employee Development Enhances Company Reputation
Talented workers are increasingly prioritizing opportunities for professional growth. Lack of career development is often listed among the top reasons people seek new opportunities. Without it, they aren’t afraid to start looking elsewhere. In fact, research found that 20% of employees who voluntarily left their companies did so because of a lack of career development opportunities.
Making continued learning a cornerstone of company goals can be attractive to current and incoming talent who want to continue to gain new skill sets. Employees who have learning opportunities are 31% more likely to recommend working for a company and 25% more likely to report being happy at work. When you give your employees the opportunity to learn and grow, you create a positive work environment worth talking about.
The Cornerstone To Success
The significance of employee training and development is massive in terms of keeping a competitive business and benefiting long-term growth and stability, from enhancing employee performance and satisfaction to driving organizational growth and remaining flexible and adaptable, investing in employee development yields so many benefits.
We have seen those benefits first-hand at Rhea + Kaiser. When we purposefully stretch ourselves and gain new insights or skills, we see our team tackle their roles with more confidence. In the end, that allows us to better serve our clients, which in turn creates a sense of shared pride. That’s why consistently mining for opportunities for our team to grow and learn is one of the most important investments we make as an agency.
Want to read more about employee development? We wrote about different learning styles and professional growth in an earlier blog. Check it out.
We would also love to hear from you about how we can help you meet your marketing objectives and business goals. Drop us a note to get the conversation started.