Employee engagement is a matter of concern for everyone from immediate supervisors right on up to the C-suite. Why? The percentage of US employees actively engaged with their jobs hovers right around 36 percent.
That also means that around 64 percent of employees are not engaged or even actively disengaged from their jobs. That’s bad news for everything from morale and motivation to productivity. Those actively disengaged employees are particularly dangerous because they can poison the well of future employees.
The good news is that training tools for employees can help you boost motivation and potentially the engagement levels of your employees. Now clear how that works? Keep reading to learn more.
Perceived Concern
One of the big reasons why people ditch a new job within their first year is all about the perceived concern or, more precisely, the lack of such concern. New employees get told about onboarding processes. When they start work, though, they routinely find themselves in a sink-or-swim environment with little or no support.
They feel underprepared for their position and responsibilities. They also feel abandoned by the company that hired them.
Most companies don’t intend for that situation to occur. In some cases, it’s more a product of understaffing than anything else. Yet, any employee left in that situation will probably show a demonstrable lack of motivation.
While your very best employees and new hires may thrive in those tough conditions, most people will not thrive. Training tools help employees feel more prepared. Feeling prepared will help them feel more motivated.
Professional Development
Another reason why people abandon jobs, even jobs they might otherwise like, is that they see no space for professional development. They took a job three years ago and can’t point to a single sign of professional progress in that entire space of time.
An employee who feels like they dead-ended when they went to work for you will not feel motivated. Many of them also won’t stick around. They’ll find another job where they see more opportunities for advancement.
Employee training options serve as a signal from your business that you understand people’s desire for professional development. Providing tools that support that development can serve as a motivator for them.
It can also help you build employees that have the right skills for potential positions you might implement down the road.
Simplifies New Software Adoption
Change management has improved dramatically over the years with a corresponding reduction in the overall failure rate of change projects. That doesn’t mean the factors that drive failure aren’t still in play.
Implementing new software in the workplace is a particularly problematic proposition. Employees already know an existing system, including plenty of useful workarounds. Even if the new system makes all of those workarounds unnecessary, switching over means everyone must discard a big chunk of organizational knowledge.
That creates resistance and saps motivation. Providing learning tools for the new software helps bridge the gap and encourages adoption of the new software. You derail the sink-or-swim element of the new software package and processes.
Providing the material and tools that let people learn the software motivates employees to accept and use it.
Mental Engagement
Good employees will eventually master their jobs. You can only do something for so long before even complicated tasks become rote for you. When employees approach that point of mastery, they also begin a process that leads to a kind of mental atrophy.
If you don’t ever learn anything or rarely face a challenge, the parts of your mind that deal with problem-solving and learning lose their potency. That kind of atrophy can undermine motivation.
Training tools can help reignite those parts of an employee’s mind. If you can structure the learning options so the material relates to a person’s position, even if only tangentially, it helps them think about their job in a new way.
New ways of thinking encourage motivation inside the workplace.
Cross-Training
A related idea here is that of cross-training people on related kinds of work. The cross-training keeps the employee mentally engaged with their job or at least with their workplace. It also opens up potential career options.
If they’re trained for something else in the business, they could potentially move into that area of the business. That may well keep them on the payroll as they weigh their career options.
On the flip side, it also means you end up with an employee who could potentially step into another part of the business if someone suddenly quits. That can prove helpful and important if you have a high-flyer in that other part of the business. If they leave, your cross-trained employee can’t pick up all of their slack, but they can pick up some of it immediately.
Helps You Reinforce Vision and Goals
Employees often lose motivation and engagement when they don’t buy in or don’t understand the overall vision and goals for the business. Work is just the place they go to make money, not the place they go to do something that contributes to the world in some way.
Most employees don’t even require a world-altering vision. Providing the best service or product can prove enough.
Training tools serve as an ideal opportunity for you to reinforce what the business vision and goals actually are. They can even help you connect specific job functions to that vision or those goals.
Looking for more ways you can motivate and engage your employees? Check out this website for ideas.
Training Tools for Employees and Your Business
Training tools for employees can do a lot in terms of boosting motivation on your team. It’s an ideal way for you to show concern in terms of preparing people for their positions. It’s also an excellent way of demonstrating a commitment to professional development.
Those tools can help you with change projects and even reinforce the business vision and goals.
Looking for more tips on managing employees for motivation and success? Check out some of our other posts over in our Business section.
