Employees HR consulting and Training Development

Increased employee engagement through a consistent training will ensure a workforce that is motivated and more likely to stay put and help achieve the company’s goals. These lead to “increased levels of performance and subsequently the bottom-line of the organization.” The average return on investment in an effective training in development program that is paired with rewards and incentives other than salary, the study “Motivation and Incentive Strategy” further said, is 300%.

A successful training and development program must be:
* Objective
* Transparent
* Reoccurring
* Constantly improving and changing to keep up to date with market trends
* Regular communication and feedback

Training and development can be used as part of a rewards strategy or an incentive program as it can be customized and timed to align with the objectives and timetable of the incentive program. And if done with a focus on educating and empowering the employees to achieve goals, training can be a good motivational tool.

Here’s how training can work within a rewards strategy:

* “Incentives, Motivation and Workplace Performance: Research & Best Practices” by Harold D. Stolovitch, Richard E. Clark, and Steven J. Condly suggests that “once an incentive is perceived as having adequate utility value, people should focus on their abilities to perform the relevant tasks” the program should begin with a process that include training support and regular communication and feedback.

* As employees work towards training and attaining performance goals, the company should work to communicate that they are behind the employees as they reach for their goals and that the incentives will be given fairly and objectively.

* The training and the common goals help become emotionally invested and engaged. This should, according to “Incentives, Motivation and Workplace Performance,” have a positive on employee and organizational spirit.

* The improvements and outcome of the training should be measured. And there should be figures to target within a specified period to give better feedback, set expectations and meet goals.

* Aim for a long term training and incentives program. According to “Incentives, Motivation and Workplace Performance, long term programs produce better results: programs that were implemented for at least a year produced a 44 percent performance increase compared to those done for six months and below which posted only a 30 percent increase.

Exercise strategic training and development programs designed to improve the engagement levels of each one of your employees today and experience vast improvements in your employee’s performance and the performance of your overall business activities.

Training and development programs, if implemented correctly and incorporated in a comprehensive rewards strategy, can be a powerful tool to help increase employee engagement and motivation.

The study called “Motivation and Incentive Strategy: The Key to Making Your Workplace Exceptional” mentioned that on the average, only 21% of employees in a business are engaged at any point in time. Of the 79 % of employees that are not engaged, 20% are actively disengaged in the workplace.

So not doing anything now to address the implementation of employee training programs to drive development and engagement means you are not maximizing the potential of your workforce and your entire company. It’s also important to address employee engagement in order to find solutions to problems brought by high attrition rates and a tight labor market but also to give tremendous financial returns for the company. Author David Maister, as cited by “Motivation and Incentive Strategy”, said that financial performance will increase by 42% when employee engagement is increased by 20%; just an increase of 20 % brings such impressive results.