People are a company’s most valuable asset.

It’s no cliché. If there is one area that can never suffer from over investment in a business it is in its staff. Around 80% of the current UK workforce will still be working in 15 years time, but without employers encouraging new skills and ongoing training, they will almost certainly not be with the same company…

But how can you ensure that your staff will still be with you in the foreseeable future, and more importantly what part does training have
to play?

Getting Off on the Right Foot
Even though all companies have some form of induction training for new starters, how it is done is key. It is not just about the skills, but showing new starters what seasoned employees take for granted.

There are four elements that should be included in every induction:

1. General Training relating to the organisation

2. Mandatory Training relating to health, safety and other legal areas

3. Job Training relating specifically to the role they will be performing

4. Training Evaluation and ensuring the employee has understood what they have learned and then personal feedback on the training

More crucially, induction training is your employee’s proper first impression of the trainer, and the organisation itself, so provides an excellent opportunity for the company to reinforce the new employee’s decision to come and work there.

Keep Them on Their Toes
Admittedly it is not always the employer that lacks the drive to ensure ongoing training. Learndirect research showed 70% of HR directors found staff couldn’t make time for training.

However it is the responsibility of the company to ensure any stalemate towards training is eradicated, and seen to be a positive aspect in an employees working life. Usually the biggest barriers are the suspected costs of training, but there are ways of dealing with this:

• Think learning rather than training. Aim to respond to individual
learning needs

• Look at skills that already exist in-house and utilize these. Have the more experienced employees coach those at a less senior level

• Encourage employees who have been on training courses to provide presentations to others wanting to learn similar skills. Offer incentives
to encourage this.

What Lies Beneath
The dangers of not providing ongoing training though far outweigh the costs of doing so. Half of employers believe the skills of UK workers have remained largely unchanged, despite the rapid advances in technology and increasing international competition. A survey of 13,000 employers found that, even though 3 in 5 felt problems were looming in the future regarding lack of developing skills, the levels of training has remained stalemated – leading to problems bubbling below the surface and creating a skills time bomb!

Ocean Consulting is a highly professional, privately owned, recruitment consultancy, specialising in Permanent & Contract recruitment within the commercial sector. With over 14 years recruiting experience within the senior management team, we focus on placing all disciplines from Receptionist’s & administrator’s right up to senior manager / director level positions within the Thames Valley area & beyond and have an excellent reputation gaining a high majority of our business through word of mouth. Why? We are very passionate about making a difference…it’s that simple

If you would like to know more about Ocean visit our website at www.dipintheocean.co.uk or reply to this e-mail and take@dipintheocean.co.uk
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