Picture two competing businesses. Both share identical products, funding, and market share. The sole difference? One company invests in talent acquisition and onboarding, and the other invests in employee training and development.
Which horse are you backing in that race?
A great company considers the entire employee lifecycle—not just one half of the equation. However, if forced to choose, we’re taking employee training and development. Why? The reason is simple: Great hires will quit when unsupported. But even the most under-the-radar talent can thrive with a training and development program that nurtures their abilities.
In this article, you’ll learn why employee training and development is so critical to organizational success. We’ll explore the nuances between training and development, the benefits of both, and examples of employee training and development done right.
What Is Employee Training and Development?
Employee training and development is the process of helping employees gain new knowledge, upskill in their jobs, and take on more important roles and responsibilities. When implemented effectively, employee training and development helps ensure employees don’t plateau and are constantly learning new ways to propel themselves, and the business, forward.
An effective employee training and development program has many moving parts, from workshop facilitators to course curriculums and various forms of eLearning. At the center of it all, however, is employee education—the concept of providing guidance (e.g., with a role, a product, or a service) so your people can operate at the height of their abilities.
The Difference Between Training and Development
Employee training and employee development are often used interchangeably. However, the two terms have their nuances.
Employee training equips your people with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in their immediate roles. Training can be proactive (e.g., a customer service training when onboarding a new hire) as well as reactive (e.g., a cybersecurity training following a data breach). In either case, employee training tends to focus on short-term learnings.
Employee development, by contrast, is the long-term acquisition of skills and knowledge in pursuit of future roles. Whereas training tends to be employer-led, development is often initiated by the employee; it’s also almost exclusively proactive. And it makes sense why: There’s more “in it” for an employee who’s working toward a promotion, a lateral move, or another career goal.
Although both training and development serve to enable employees and improve performance, they’re best thought of as complementary pieces of the same puzzle. To engage and retain great talent, it’s crucial to balance immediate training needs with long-term development goals.
Why Employee Training and Development Matters
Employee training and development serves three fundamental, yet equally important, purposes.
Purpose #1: It helps ensure organizations have people with the right skills, knowledge, and talent needed to maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. As the nature of work changes—especially now, with the acceleration of AI technology—companies must be willing and able to adapt to new innovations. Employee training and development gives the means of upskilling and even reskilling your workforce to achieve future success.
Purpose #2: On the employee side, training and development allows individuals the flexibility and autonomy to drive their own career pathing within your organization. Gone are the days when upskilling consisted of an annual workshop; today’s employees are hungry for knowledge, and working diligently to develop new skills and hone existing crafts. By granting them those opportunities, you give them the tools to become self-propelled top performers.
Purpose #3: When organizations advocate for learning and development, it tells employees you’re invested in their long-term future. Not only does that build trust—it also boosts retention. Per SHRM, 76% of employees say they’re more likely to stay at an organization that provides continued learning opportunities. Likewise, in our 2022 Transforming Organizational Education Initiatives Report, we found that 56% of businesses with formalized education initiatives report improved retention rates.
Take these reasons together, and you begin to see the bigger picture. By investing in employee training and development, you build a more engaged, resilient, and productive workforce—all in one smooth motion.
Benefits of Employee Training and Development
If you’re looking to start or expand your organization’s training and development efforts, you may wonder how to make a compelling business case.
You’re in luck. There’s a wealth of employee training statistics to back you up, from improved retention rates to reduced support costs and increased revenue. Or, if you’d prefer to lead with pain points, you can explore the inverse—the costs of neglecting employee training.
Need help crafting your proposal? Look no further than these benefits of employee training and development:
Fewer skill gaps
In any free market, there’s bound to be friction as workers leave old jobs in pursuit of new opportunities. For too long, however, the business world has suffered from a sizable skills gap—and the chasm is only widening. The World Economic Forum projects that 44% of employees’ core skills (e.g., reading, writing, programming) will be challenged in the next five years due to artificial intelligence and other disruptors.
Employees and employers alike must adapt to the changes—or risk being swept up by them. Thankfully, employee learning is an effective means of narrowing the skills gap. By taking the time to upskill your workforce, you ensure your people have transferable skills they can apply within their roles, no matter what the future brings.
Higher performance
Learning and development isn’t just a means of staving off disruption. With proper planning, your employee training and development program can make for a critical competitive advantage.
When you empower people to grow in their roles, those employees eventually become candidates for expanded responsibilities within your organization. Soon, the entry-level BDR you hired gains enough on-the-job sales experience to qualify for an Account Executive role. With the right development conversations, they could eventually move into a Sales Manager role—and begin training an entirely new cohort of high-potential sales reps.
Now apply that effective employee training regimen across your entire organization. When every employee is growing toward that next personal milestone, it means your company is constantly growing too. And that’ll pay dividends in discretionary effort and performance metrics.
Improved employee retention
As the skills gap widens, workers are reassessing what exactly they want from their careers. At a time when generative AI threatens to displace entire team functions, employees are putting a premium on transferable skills. It isn’t enough to know how to write, or how to code. To make yourself indispensable in today’s economy, workers need leadership skills, business acumen, marketing chops, and countless other “X” factors.
Companies that prioritize career development and upskilling show their employees that they’re committed to their long-term journey—and not just looking for a backside in a seat. By offering incentives such as education stipends and mentorship programs, you stand to gain not just happier, more engaged employees, but higher retention rates too.
Reduced support costs
There’s nothing worse than being hired for a job, only to be dropped into the deep end of the pool and asked to swim. Without the tools, resources, and education needed to succeed in a role, employees can’t be faulted when they inevitably drop the ball.
Now imagine the opposite scenario—a job where the employee feels supported from day one to day 100 and beyond. Chances are, they’d be more skilled in their role, not to mention more confident and engaged.
So, it should come as little surprise that in our 2022 report, we found that 27% of companies report lower support costs after implementing an education program. It makes sense. When employees have the education and training they need to do their job, and do it well, productivity soars. For client-facing roles like support, this means shorter queues, better-informed reps, and greater customer satisfaction.
Increased revenue
When you combine all the above, you get a workforce that is more adaptable, more efficient, and more likely to stay long-term. So, while it may be an obvious takeaway, it’s worth driving home: Employee training and development is a critical driver of the bottom line.
Our 2022 report found that 43% of organizations report increased revenue after implementing an education program. That number jumps to 57% when companies use an education platform built to upskill multiple audiences.
The takeaway: If your leadership team isn’t prioritizing employee training and development, they’re leaving money on the table. Thankfully, there are scalable education platforms—like Intellum—that are easy to deploy and get value from quickly.
Types of Employee Training and Development
As you consider starting or expanding your employee education efforts, you might wonder if there’s a “right” place to start. There’s a wide array of training and development programs to pursue, and it’s crucial to know how each can benefit your business.
Here are five distinct areas of employee training and development that can serve as a starting point:
Technical training: This training focuses on helping employees excel in their tactical, day-to-day roles. Technical training can cover the responsibilities of a role (e.g., a sales rep perfecting talk tracks or cold email outreach). Or, it can cover a specific resource or tool (e.g., a data analyst learning Tableau).
Soft skills training: Whereas technical training aims to help employees complete specific tasks, soft skills training focuses on broader, widely applicable practices. An easy example is a communications training designed to help teammates work together more effectively. Emotional intelligence, time management, and critical thinking all fall under the “soft skills” category.
Leadership development: True to its name, leadership development focuses on helping employees navigate the organization with greater confidence and conviction. Often facilitated via mentorship or coaching, leadership development enables people to broaden their influence, build stronger relationships, and become effective people, project, or function managers.
Professional development: Whereas leadership development pertains to the needs of the business, professional development is geared more toward the employee and their career aspirations. A professional development conversation might task the employee with identifying career goals, then designing a five- or 10-year plan to help achieve those goals.
Personal development: If professional development helps the individual work toward career goals, personal development helps them work toward more emotional or social goals. An employee might use a personal development check-in to develop greater self-awareness or EQ, so they can better collaborate with their team members, manager, or direct reports.
Examples of Employee Training and Development Programs
Employee training and development programs look different from company to company. Even if you’re clear on the types of training and development to pursue, it helps to know what’s worked elsewhere, so you can replicate successes and learn from failures.
Here are some examples of best-in-class employee training and development programs:
Intellum’s Boost Budget
1) At Intellum, we pride ourselves on putting our employees and their careers first. Our education platform is designed to upskill employees, clients, and channel partners alike. Naturally, we know a thing or two about effective training and development!
Intellum’s Boost Budget is a $3,500 annual stipend we give to every employee to fuel their professional development. Every employee, every year. Whether someone’s looking to attend an industry conference, complete a certification series, or simply enrich their existing skill set, we want to make it happen.
By making the Boost Budget a recurring benefit, we encourage our employees to make a consistent investment in their learning and development. And since the stipend is a set amount and available to all, there’s no favoritism. Everyone has a right to their development—no business case needed.
Our people are well aware of this benefit and take routine advantage of it. As they should! It’s a great way of unplugging from work to focus on personal goals and aspirations. And since employees can use the stipend however they see fit, each year sees a rich diversity of learning styles and experiences.
Allied Universal’s EDGE
Allied Universal is the leader in private security, and the seventh-largest private employer in the world. Synonymous with university campuses, office buildings, shopping malls, and so much more, the Allied Universal badge is one you likely know well.
With 800,000+ employees worldwide, Allied Universal relies heavily on scalability and sustainability. If a program or initiative can’t grow alongside the business, it isn’t long to last. This is especially true of Allied’s employee training efforts. Security is detailed, disciplined work, and local, state, and federal compliance laws are constantly evolving. Add on the fact that Allied professionals are constantly moving between shifts, and effecting training can seem a daunting task.
So, when Allied Universal partnered with Intellum in 2009, both companies hit the ground running. Leveraging our education platform, the security firm designed a training program called The EDGE (Educate, Develop, Grow, and Engage). A blend of virtual and in-person learning, the EDGE program uses courses, trainings, podcasts, and other media to help Allied professionals upskill in their roles and champion future development.
For busy security professionals, finding time for development can be challenging. Thankfully, Intellum supports short, modular learning that can be accessed on desktop or mobile. Taking full advantage of the Intellum platform, Allied designed a curriculum that supports bite-sized microlearning, cutting down on lengthy in-person workshops and empowering employees to take their training on the go.
Creative solutions like this are just some of the many ways Allied Universal uses Intellum to meet the needs of the business while putting its people first.
Making the Business Case for Employee Training and Development
If you’re in HR or L&D, advocating for education can feel like an uphill battle. You’re not alone. According to our 2023 State of Education Initiative Ownership Report, 66% of learning professionals believe it’s best for the business when different teams own different aspects of workplace education. Sadly, only 14% of people say employee education is actually shared among teams. (Fifty percent say HR owns the function, while 27% say education does.)
When teams operate in silos, it’s hard to communicate the value of your work to others at your organization—particularly executives. To make a strong business case for corporate learning, you’ll want to develop a strategy that demonstrates how education furthers the organization’s goals and articulates the importance of fostering a culture of learning.
Take time to identify the needs of the program, including pros, cons, risks, and success factors, and develop a plan to track data and metrics to showcase a return on investment. When presenting these figures to senior leaders, tailor your messaging based on their needs and goals, and come prepared to discuss any concerns. Success hinges on answering “What’s in it for me?” and illustrating how education can elevate your employees, culture, and bottom line.
Tips for Scaling Your Training and Development Program
In the early stages of any learning and development initiative, it's important to think holistically about how your education will close the performance gap. Consider the design and development of the learning experience, as well as the analysis and planning that goes into successfully implementing a training program.
On the back end, this process consists of identifying training needs, gauging development bandwidth, outlining an educational curriculum (and marketing plan), and coming up with an implementation and rollout timeline. Align with stakeholders on each of the deliverables needed for success, and hold the team to any deadlines you commit to.
Then there’s the front end. How will your end users consume this education? What forms of learning (text, videos, interactives, etc.) do they prefer? Are on-site training sessions an option? Will you focus on eLearning? Will education be self-serve, instructor-led, or a mix of both?
Answering all of the above is crucial when it comes time to actually build and deliver your program. It also helps to have the right tools. A learning management system (LMS) can help your team easily create educational content in collaboration with other stakeholders at your organization. Make an imperfect first draft, shop it around for feedback, iterate, test, and deploy. Once you get the hang of “doing,” focus on scalability and replicable successes.
As you deploy your employee training and development program, keep in mind what else is going on within the organization. Be aware of any competing priorities that may impact the program’s ability to achieve its goals, and have contingency measures that’ll help you course-correct if roadblocks happen. (Hint: They always do.)
Debunking Misconceptions About Training and Development
From an organizational perspective, training and development can be seen as a massive investment—from the labor needed to develop and implement training, to the costs associated with training materials and software. Especially when organizations don’t have a clear way to measure the return on investment (ROI), it’s easy to view education as a risky investment.
Exacerbating this fear is the belief that training is a one-size-fits-all measure that only works in a specific time and space. In many leaders’ eyes, training and development is most effective when it has an end date (e.g., an onboarding plan, a compliance training session). It’s not viewed or treated as a recurring, cyclical process. On the other side of the spectrum, some leaders believe training is the answer to everything—a panacea to all engagement or performance issues.
Here’s the reality: Training is complex. It takes time and effort to develop learning paths that reflect the diversity of your employee base. But when done correctly (and treated as part of the employee lifecycle), your training and development efforts pay dividends. The biggest risk with training and development is calling it quits before you manage to see the benefits.
Build a Culture of Employee Learning With Intellum
Training and development is everyone’s responsibility—not just HR’s or L&D’s. To foster a culture where employees address skills gaps and invest in personal development, your entire organization must buy into your vision.
Intellum can help make your culture of continual learning possible. Use our platform to design courses, deliver webinars, engage employees with social and gamified learning, and more. Our authoring tools are powerful and easy to use, allowing you to focus less on building and more on teaching. Track results with our data dashboard, and demonstrate ROI with confidence.
Schedule a demo, and see Intellum in action for yourself.
