Why Is Workplace Training Necessary?

training-roomAn adult’s education doesn’t simply stop after graduation from college.  Learning is a lifelong endeavour, whether it takes place in the classroom doing pharmaceutical engineering courses or in the workplace.

Providing workplace training for your employees can give you a competitive edge in the marketplace, help you manage risk and raise morale among your team members.

Compliance Training

Training that teaches your employees how to comply with basic employment law principles can help protect your company from liability and litigation.  An employer can be held legally responsible for the on-the-job actions of employees.

Training employees about issues such as harassment and discrimination helps an employer manage that risk.  Workplace training puts all employees on notice of company policies regarding unethical behaviour and lets them know that you won’t tolerate non-compliance.

If you discipline or terminate an employee who crosses the line, you reduce the chance the company will get sued.

Safety Training

Workplace safety training helps your employees avoid hazardous conditions.  Like all training programs, safety training should be relevant to your industry, your location and your company’s culture.

Employees who use computers and mobile devices need to know how to avoid viruses and scams.  Employees who travel need to learn travel safety tips.

All employees should know how to recognise the warning signs of workplace violence.  Basic safety training helps your employees be prepared for the worst-case scenario.

Skills Training

Job-specific skills training may be the most important investment you make in your workforce.

Training your employees in their core functional work will help your company keep pace with changes.  Updating your sales staff’s product knowledge, your IT workers’ technical skills and your office workers’ software skills also helps build employee confidence and morale.

Formal skills training should be an ongoing part of your workplace training program.

Employee Benefit

Workplace training is an employee benefit, on par with health insurance or holiday pay.  Employers invest time and money to hire trainers and arrange for training facilities, and they sacrifice productivity while training is in session.

Employees who take advantage of these development opportunities learn skills that help them stay engaged in their work and advance to the next level.  Unless the training is company-specific, the material learned is portable and adds value that the employee can retain and bring to future employers.

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