There are 3 times when new employees need to be hired. When a business is growing it is typical that new employees will be needed to service the additional business. That is the only time that hiring new employees makes good business sense. The other times are when you require a skillset that none of your current employees possess, and when an employee leaves to work someplace else leaving you with a vacancy that must be filled to continue servicing the same amount of business. In these two instances the hiring is a time consuming and expensive process that will involve many hours of training on your business practices prior to being a profitable contributor to your business.
Why Training is Cheaper than Hiring
Anytime you spend time training an employee you have an investment in them. Even in the case of purely in-house training, the time another employee or manager spends with them is reducing the output of both the trainer and the new hire. After spending weeks training an individual on your precise business policies so they are a fully contributing member, it makes no sense to allow them to take these new skills to a competitor to make them money.
Not only do you lose on the time spent training and employee and add the cost of advertising and screening a replacement, every employee that leaves takes with them valuable knowledge of the way you do business and knowledge of your clients and practices that can give your competitors an advantage. To protect your business it is imperative that you keep these losses to a minimum. That is one of the key reasons it is better to train up your employees to take on new roles in your company rather than to let them simply leave to another business.
New Skills Inspire Loyalty
When investing in training of employees not only do you reap the benefit of the new skills, it makes employees feel like you are making an investment in them and in their future. This will inspire loyalty so every discussion of leaving does not revolve only around the next pay raise but also about why you offer better opportunities and future than other places. In today’s world anything that gives a sense of security to your employees has great value and this can be achieved by training where you and the employee both reap benefits just as well as by a pay raise that simply increases your costs as a business.
When employees see that it is the practice to hire from within and also to provide training for further opportunities, it casts a shadow on the lure of working for a competitor in a similar role which they currently own but for more money. This keeps your costs down while raising the ante for competitors trying to poach you’re your best employees. The key to the increased retention is the providing training so your employees know you are serious about keeping them and preparing them for advancement.
While it is not possible to have person qualified to train advanced skills in every company already on staff, there are companies that are able to come in and train your employees as departments or individuals. Places like Watt Works Consulting can give viable training options that help you with both loyalty and retention while still increasing productivity. When compared to the cost of hiring and training a new employee of unknown work habits, it is much cheaper to simply give additional training to your current employees to make them more productive while inspiring the loyalty that protects your business practices.