Bosses: Train your people

Business owners are often scared of training. There’s a feeling that once you’ve spent money giving people the skills they need to run your business, they’ll use their new-found expertise to find a better job elsewhere.

Maybe, but if you spend money wisely giving your people the right skills your investment will pay off quickly.

Take a trivial example: Microsoft Word.

Many knowledge workers spend a large part of their working day dealing with Word – often without ever mastering the software. A one-day training course will be enough to teach most people everything they need to know about the program.

Typically a one-day out-of-office course will set you back between $250 and $500 per person depending on various factors. You’ll also lose the person’s labour for a day.

The average Australian worker is paid around A$27 an hour. In New Zealand the average hourly wage is around NZ$25. Knowledge workers will earn more.

So the investment you make training your employee to be more effective with Microsoft Word will return a dividend once you’ve saved 10 hours.

You can realistically reckon on reaching that point in two months. Probably less. What’s more, your employee will be able to produce higher quality documents, which will reflect better on your company.

Perhaps the most important pay off is in employee motivation. Many workers like to acquire skills; it boosts their self-esteem and shows them that you feel they are worth investing in.

There’s another reason to spend money training your staff: The Hawthorne effect.