Here’s a little secret: Your employees want to learn new things. It’s a way for them to keep their skills sharp and stay on top of their game. It benefits them personally and professionally, and honestly, it benefits your company too! 

People who feel they can’t expand their abilities in their current job might get bored or anxious and start to look for other opportunities. You definitely don’t want that! The easy solution, then, is to find ways to provide learning and training opportunities. 

Here are a few types of training and educational opportunities that can keep your team happy and their abilities expanding! 

Training That Can Help Your Workforce Grow

Leadership

People like to feel confident and trusted. They want to have leadership skills to know they’re capable of supporting and taking charge of a team and to have the responsibilities that go along with advancing in their position. One survey found 32% of people want leadership training to help them feel more engaged in their job and their careers. By making online leadership training courses available to your team, you’re giving them the keys to their career advancement while building up skills that will help you have the ability to promote from within the company in the future. Learning skills like effective delegation and self-management helps build confidence and teamwork in addition to time management and organizational skills. 

Professional Certifications

Remember the thrill of earning a certificate in school? It showed that you had special training and education and that you’d completed all the steps that could set you apart from others — being able to swim in the deep end required a certification from the Red Cross or another safety organization and proved that you were a good swimmer. Similarly, professional certifications indicate your team has taken upon themselves extra training and specialized instruction to add skills that can help boost their abilities and make their resumes look really impressive while also making them even more integral to your team. It’s all the benefits of going back to college to add to a degree but without the same time and financial commitment! Certifications come in all kinds of specialties, from human resources and accounting to social services and legal abilities, and are typically offered by qualified organizations that establish industry-respected standards. Some certifications, like a Graduate Certificate in Business Administration, can be applied as credits toward an advanced degree if you have employees interested in furthering their education even more. 

Technical Skills

If you want to increase your web traffic for sales or to help bring in new job candidates, it might be a good idea to offer search engine optimization (SEO) training for your team. Or maybe there’s someone with tons of creative ideas who could benefit from an art and media or graphic design program? Technical skills are transferable and in high demand, making your employees more valuable to your team, and it could save you the cost of having to bring in outside technicians or experts to solve big problems. Some certifications include technical training but not all, but hosting your own training sessions can be a great way to add to your team’s abilities without having to take time off for a course or a short leave of absence to return to school. 

Teamwork and Personal Skills

You want your team to get along, and, for the most part, they do, but sometimes things get tense. Offering emotional intelligence skills or team-building exercises and development can help make your team’s interpersonal abilities even better. Improved communication skills help everyone, from management down, to work better and more efficiently while cutting down on misunderstandings and reduced productivity from unneeded meetings.

Help Defray Costs

If there are courses or training you cannot bring in-house, but you believe your team would benefit from the extra skills, it might benefit the company as well as the employee to help cover the costs. It’s an investment in your employee to help pay for courses, but it benefits your company as well! The return on investment can be more than 100% when you think about the alternative: having to hire outside companies to provide the same services or the cost of having to replace an employee who couldn’t grow under your roof. 

Don’t get nervous if your employees start asking about training opportunities. It doesn’t mean they’re looking to pad their resume in the hopes of leaving your company and finding a new job — but failing to provide access or support for that ambition might drive them away.

See How ABLE Can Help You Find the Talent You Need

If you’re looking to add to your team or need to hire new employees with new skills, call ABLE Associates! We can help find the right candidates with the skills you need, whether on a permanent or temporary basis. Contact ABLE Associates today, and let’s get to work.