How to educate your employees on a tight budget

Your employees are the lifeblood of your business, and their skills and expertise are essential to achieving the corporate goals that you have established. However, you may be looking at your overhead and trying to determine areas to cut back on.

Reducing spending in employee education is unfortunately common, but the lack of training in your team members can be devastating to your business. It can result in reduced employee motivation and productivity, high turnover rates, poor customer service, and much more. The good news is that there are effective ways you can properly train your employees in a more cost-effective manner.

Identify training goals

Initially, you must identify the core goals you need to achieve through training. This may include both hard and soft skills. You also need to accurately assess the areas where your team members need improvement through regular performance reviews and communicating with employees about what they think their weaknesses are.

Ideally, you will customize a training program that meets the employees’ needs perfectly and that does not waste money on unnecessary training. In addition, the training program should be aligned with corporate goals, such as those related to increasing productivity, improving sales numbers, and providing better customer service.

There are numerous training modules and programs that can be used to most closely meet the unique needs of your team.

Send them out

Bringing in-house training programs to your office may be a monumental expense, whereas a more cost-effective solution is to send your employees out to structured training seminars based on their needs.

So what to do? Actively search for industry association conferences and seminars that they can attend. Send them in groups to save money on hotel expenses and car rentals if necessary.

You can also look for in-town training seminars and conferences for a more budget-minded solution. Remember that your membership in some associations may entitle you to discounted or free attendance at some of these events, so analyze the financial benefits of becoming a member.

Have them work in pairs

While formal education and training is one way to improve your employees’ skills, another idea is to have each employee receive one-on-one training with a more skilled and experienced co-worker. You can pair up employees based on their strengths and weaknesses so that the overall skill level of your team as a whole is improved.

You may also ask more skilled employees or managers to host an in-office seminar for others. These in-house training programs are cost-effective, and they may decrease downtime associated with attending out-of-office training events.

You can also send out your team managers to receive specialized training out of the office, and they can then educate your staff members about what they have learned when they return.

Leverage EdTech resources

Thanks to technological innovations, there are great educational opportunities for your team to learn in the office or at home through Internet-based training modules. These are available to your team 24 hours a day, and this flexibility may work great with busy employees who have important responsibilities in your company. Some are free, and others may have an affordable fee if you purchase a bulk set of training for most of your team.

There are really many options to consider. For instance, you can explore mobile apps, MOOC’s (massive open online courses), educational webinars, and many other useful resources. You can even ask your team to watch a short motivational video at your next sales team. The wide range of options gives you incredible flexibility to focus on a specific skill that needs to be improved upon in your office. You can also encourage them to further their education in order to prepare them for higher roles in your organization. By investing in their education through an online MBA degree, for example, you also invest in your company through its future leaders.

Consider gamification

Learning can be fun in the workplace, and there are many educational games that can be used to help your employees improve in the areas of competitiveness, strategic thinking, or teamwork. These games may enhance skills while also improving memory, data retention and more.

There is a wide range of gaming techniques to consider, and these include challenges, rewards, levels, avatars, leaderboards, badges, and so on. With many high-tech games, the participants receive instant feedback that they can learn from, and there is often a self-diagnostic application in these educational games as well.

Use service provider packages

Another great way to save money while educating your team members is to use service provider packages. When you purchase software products or other technological solutions, you may be provided with free or discounted training opportunities.

These can help your workers improve productivity in various ways. You may also be able to find webinars about various products that you purchase, and these may be viewed by your employees in their free time.

Conclusion

Training your employees properly and on an on-going basis is necessary for the overall success of your business. The good news is that you can reduce spending in this area without sacrificing on the quality of their education. By implementing these training tips today, you can achieve your goals more easily and affordably.

(Featured image by everything possible via Shutterstock)

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DISCLAIMER: This article was written by a third party contributor and does not reflect the opinion of Born2Invest, its management, staff or its associates. Please review our disclaimer for more information.