Chika Uwazie’s TalentBase: The Importance of Workforce Learning & Development

Virgin Boss, Richard Branson once said; “clients do not come first, employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” This is not just true, it is the golden rule of modern big brand. Every day that passes, it becomes harder to keep talent at your company. So many people are starting businesses and need people with the smarts to help them excel. Millennials who make up the bulk of this changing workforce, point to the opportunity to learn and grow as one of the key factors they consider when choosing where to work, and stay. You’re about to find out why that is very important.

Career Building
While an employee plays his trade at your firm, he or she is also building their career, thus wants to be better than how they came in. It is the dream of every employee to increase their knowledge in their chosen field, as well as learn more about other fields. This is why potential employees weigh what they will be learning while at a firm, who they might be learning from and the nature of projects that will shape their experience. If a business guarantees this, it makes them talent magnets.

Problem Solving Ease
We live in a fast changing world; so fast changing that problems, client preferences and other business parameters keep changing everyday. By investing in workforce development, employers ensure they stay on top of their game and and have the best hands for whatever their competition or the market might throw at them. This is also a nice feeling as it breeds innovative excellence and an increase in productivity.

Action Feedback
It’s an established fact that communication is a performance booster, especially as it has to do with feedback; but what is often not mentioned is that helping employees utilise such feedback is of even more importance. When you, as an employer, or superior spots an employee’s weakness, providing an opportunity for them to learn how to beat such weakness is a bigger feedback mechanism than just telling them what they aren’t getting right. While this ultimately helps them turn the weakness to a strength, it also shows how much they are cared for and boosts the company perception.

Reduces Employee Turnover
Employee turnover refers to how frequently staff choose to leave your business for another endeavour. Some of of the top reasons business owners have noticed for high turnover is the inability of an employee to blend in with the team, low productivity or inadequate progress with their work. Some businesses have noticed that by providing learning opportunities in form of mentiorship, such turnover reasons have been eliminated. Others found that a steady rise in development of staff resulted in a morale boost that reflected in company reputation and staff retention.

Satisfied Customers
The endgame of every business is to have happy customers. If the end user of a service appreciates the service received, then it can be said that a brand is good. Just like in products, companies can only get better by improving their people. People are the process, people are the ideas. People are the product. Customers get an overall good experience when staff are well trained and understand their needs.

Workforce development is not a one-time thing, it is an everyday thing. Every business must strive to keep challenging her people people to learn. Thankfully, online tools that speed up learning delivery now exists, so it’s simpler now more than ever to transfer knowledge. The goal remains to make each part as awesome as the whole.