Once upon a time employee training was frowned upon. However, over the last few years there has been a definite shift in culture in relation to it, with more and more businesses happy to invest in the practice.
This training can of course come in all shapes and sizes. For senior positions, it’s not been unheard of for companies to send their staff to complete an MBA over a significant period of time (usually an online MBA, with no GMAT required for obvious reasons). Then, there are of course the everyday training courses, which will take an employee out of an office for a day or two at a time and provide them with skills they can instantly implement into the workplace.
Regardless of the type of training that is provided, there are a lot of myths that don this area of business. Through the course of today’s article, we will now look to debunk three of the biggest ones once and for all.
“Employees will take their learning and ultimately find a new job”
Particularly if a business is sending their employees to quite an advanced form of training, this is an obvious fear.
However, there are a few ways of looking at this. Firstly, many employees view training as a real perk. In other words, it makes them feel valued, and they are actually more likely to be loyal to the company if they feel as though they are being invested in like this.
Then, there is the question of are you allowing your employees to put into practice what they have learned? If you are not, it suggests that the training wasn’t suitable for them and their current role, and they are perhaps vindicated in looking for alternative employment.
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“Employees don’t have time for training as it takes them away from real work”
This is one of those myths which tends to do the rounds in smaller companies, and that is somewhat understandable. After all, budgets are small, and not only is a company paying out decent sums of money for the training, but they are probably losing quite a high proportion of their workforce for the period.
However, studies have shown that training can actually make them more effective. It takes them out of a comfort zone and provides a temporary different challenge than the day-to-day barrage of emails. Ultimately, it means that the employee becomes much more engaged and over the long-term at least, a lot more productive.
“E-learning is not an effect means of training”
Once upon a time this may have been something that was proven to be correct. Nowadays though, e-learning is key to training. In fact, studies have shown that almost 9/10 employees feel as though e-learning is more beneficial than a classroom approach.
It’s worth remembering that a lot of online courses are run by the same companies who did the initial, classroom-based ones. Universities fall into this group, and the fact that something as extensive as an MBA falls into this category perhaps highlights how effective it is.