Why You Need To Retrain Your Employees & How To Do It Effectively

There is no doubt that the modern workforce is constantly evolving. With new technologies and changes in the economy, businesses must adapt quickly to stay ahead of the competition. One of the most important ways to do this is by retraining your employees regularly. 

Retraining is all about adaptability. It is a process that involves updating one’s skills and creating new ones to remain competitive. The changing nature of a workplace and industry can be equally challenging to navigate for an employee and an organization. However, with proper training, organizations can boost their efficiency in operations, reduce employee turnover rate, and save a LOT of money. At the same time, employees can learn new skills to better adapt and boost role diversity. 

As per a report by Manpower Group, 3 in every 4 organizations have reported talent shortages. This drastic increase in talent shortage is likely to cost employers $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues by 2030. The recommended approach, in this scenario, is retraining your employees to perform their roles better and help them grow within the organization. 

Why you should consider retraining your workforce?

With the fourth industrial revolution reshaping the scope of industries, new technologies and practices are emerging at a breakneck pace. Staying competent in line with the market demand is now more difficult than ever. Every organization has different sets of employees; there are people who are more in sync with the latest practices, and then there are employees who have gained intimate knowledge about your product and services through years of experience. The problem lies in integrating the two sets to make all your employees product masters that are well versed with new technologies and practices. This is what retraining helps with. 

As per the World Economic Forum, more than half of the employees across the world will require upskilling and reskilling by 2025 to stay competitive. It is imperative that organizations offer their employees rich learning opportunities to support mutual growth. 

Benefits of Retraining

The key to success, as the saying goes, is knowledge. You need to future-proof your workforce by making it more productive, efficient, and resilient.  Here are some of the advantages that retraining employees bring to organizations and their employees. 

• Increase employee retention – 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invests in their learning and development. Having a competent retraining program will help you reduce the employee turnover rate.

• Reduce hiring costs – Hiring costs have been through the roof for the past couple of years. So much so that replacing an employee can cost your organization up to 2x the employee’s annual salary. Having a retraining program in place will allow you to retain employees and save on these costs. 

• Bridge skill gaps – As per Business Wire, nearly half of the employees around the globe are concerned that they will be out of a job within five years due to a lack of skills. An employer can bridge this increasing skill gap by introducing learning and development opportunities in their organization. 

• Develop a learning environment – With rapid shifts in today’s labor landscape, it has become vital for employers to develop a work environment that is favorable to their employees. Learning and development will not only give your organization a competitive advantage but will also boost employee satisfaction and morale. 

• Increase employee engagement and productivity – An organizational setting is not very different from a social setting if we look at things from a broader perspective. Just like we require reassurance and support from our social circle, employees also need the same from their employers. Retraining programs allow your employees to feel more valued which, in turn, increases their productivity and engagement.  

• Support mutual growth and development – Every organization expects its employees to do their best when it comes to performing their job roles. However, not every organization gives them the opportunities to do so. Competent retraining programs help your employees do their work better and help them grow personally as well. 

• Attract better talent – As per Lorman, 70% of employees would leave their current job to work for an organization that invests in the learning and development of its employees. People are more inclined to work in an organization that allows them to add value to its operations. If you have a proper training setup, you will attract better talent. 

• Build competitive advantage – Having employees that are well versed with the product and services of your organization are more likely to help you succeed than employees who are in for a shorter period of time. A retraining program allows you to retain employees with intimate product knowledge and helps them upskill to match the industry standards giving you the ‘Dream Team.’

Retraining Your Workforce: How to Do It

Developing a retraining program for your employees requires careful planning and targeted strategies for each step along the way. Here’s how you can build a multifaceted retraining program – 

• Define your retraining goals 

While every employee benefits from the retraining program, it is essential to identify the problem areas and skills required to address them. You can start by discussing these skill gaps with your managers and define your retraining goals based on the same. 

• Integrate retraining into employee performance and development 

To get your employees on board with the retraining initiatives, you can integrate it into their performance assessment and development plans. This will not only incentivize them to actively take part in the training courses but also allow them to climb higher in the organization. 

• Enroll employees in training programs

Once you have a training plan in place, the next step is to enroll your employees in the required training programs. For this activity, it is recommended to implement a Learning Management System or LMS to automate the training process. An LMS will allow you to make teams and have the managers assign their team members the courses they need to upskill and reskill. It also has several other provisions to help you with new hire training, compliance training, and more. As per Finance Online, 72% of organizations gained a competitive edge after adopting an LMS, and 40% of the Fortune 500 companies use LMS extensively to remain competitive. 

• Evaluate the effectiveness of the training program

Post-implementation, you must also keep a check on the effectiveness of the training program and courses your employees have enrolled in or completed. You can ask for employee feedback, manager feedback, and also access detailed insights from the LMS’s dashboard. 

Retraining programs can be the pathbreakers you’re looking for to excel in your industry. However, it is not easy to develop a competent, comprehensive, and scalable retraining program. If you are looking for an easy way out, check out Auzmor Learn. It’s an intuitive, robust, and scalable LMS with integration support for most platforms organizations use. Get in touch with our experts for a FREE 30-minute consultation.