Whether the investment is in time or in money, small business owners devote their resources toward issues that brings a return. For example, if employee benefits weren't something that workers highly valued, companies likely wouldn't invest much effort in making them top quality.
That being said, there are those issues that take time before witnessing a substantial return on one's investment. And as a recent poll suggests, many business owners seem to be demonstrating this by not shoring up the infrastructure that helps workers perform their jobs at their best.
More than 50 percent of business owners are spending less than $500 annually per employee on training, according to a recent survey conducted by human resources firm Udemy. This is despite the fact that the vast majority of entrepreneurs – 71 percent – believe that their staff have the intelligence and the aptitude to excel in their respective positions.
Conducted by ResearchNow on behalf of the San Francisco, California-based Udemy for Business, approximately 175 company managers were queried, asked various questions about what their priorities were and where they devoted their resources.
Paul Sebastien, Udemy vice president and general manager, said that you name the line of work, there's a growing skills gap in the United States.
"But the majority of companies aren't taking essential steps to implement more training and make sure their employees can thrive while their organizations grow," said Sebastien.
He added that business owners need to work with their HR departments to determine early on what can be done to close the skills gap so that positions are outfitted with the right people for the job, capable of getting things done efficiently on a consistent basis.
Identifying workers who will 'fit in' essential
While the interview process can often be formulaic – asking workers about their backgrounds, why they want to work for the company and informing them of what employee benefits come with working for the company – it's important not to overlook whether workers' personality types are a good fit for the environment they'll be working in. According to a separate survey conducted by recruitment firm OfficeTeam, nearly two-thirds of HR managers acknowledged that they've misjudged how well a candidate would acclimate with the company's culture. In fact, the same percentage also said that they've lost an employee because of this lack of cohesiveness.
There are those character traits that can't be taught through training, like leadership and mentorship. The Udemy survey revealed that more than half of respondents pointed to soft skills such as these as being the most important in the hiring process.
Provided they have the intelligence, employees should be able to accomplish those tasks that need to be learned. Yet few seems to be putting the type of investment often needed toward these training courses. Just 15 percent of respondents said that they'd updated their training programs in the past year, the poll found.
"This survey reminds us that ongoing development of job-related skills, including both soft skills and technical skills, is critical," said Jennifer Stine, Ph.D, executive education experts, whose served in faculty capacity at prestigious universities like MIT and Harvard. "At the same time companies must find ways to achieve this cost effectively."
She added that if business owners want to succeed, they have to key in on what training programs bring about the greatest development for their workers. In other words, if newly minted employees go on to become highly skilled in their job capacity, it would suggest that the current training program is doing what's it meant to.
