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If you want your business to become ever more successful and you want a team around you that is loyal and trustworthy, one of the best investments you can make is to further educate for your employees.
This could include helping with college bills, but it also encompasses a wide range of education opportunities including attending conferences, listening in on webinars, reading books and blogs, and more.
To educate employees is like reinvesting in a stock that offers you a great dividend and a long term upside. Yes, there is a chance that the stock will go south, and there is a chance an employee that you invest education dollars in will move on. But the potential reward is a loyal workforce that is committed to improving themselves and your business.
Here’s the thing. The business world is changing. These changes will have a bigger and bigger impact on your business. You can keep yourself and your employees up to date, or you can just hope that you will still be able to compete.
Kathi Elster, co-author of Working for You Isn’t Working for Me, offers this advice:
“Invest in educating your people – webinars, classes, books, guest speakers – this is the time to learn what is NEW and how that will impact your industry and your company.”
If you have employees, the great news is that you do not have to stay on top of changes all by yourself. By offering up education, you can recruit your workforce to help your business grow and continue to succeed, even in an ever-changing environment. Not investing in education will leave you far behind. If your sales rep still uses a Rolodex, it is time to upgrade. And it is far better and cheaper to upgrade through education than through firing and hiring.
Not only will a better educated workforce be able to do a better job, your business will also benefit from more engaged employees and a greater level of employee loyalty. Here is what Alan Vengel, author of 20 Minutes to a Top Performer, has to say about engaging employees to build loyalty.
“Take care of your people. These are the employees who have survived with you and helped your business stay afloat in the last 18 months. Most business owners and managers have been so focused on keeping the business going, and keeping revenue flowing, that they have forgotten to take the basic steps necessary to keep loyal employees motivated and engaged. Right now would be a great time for leaders and small business owners to begin to reengage their workforce with conversations about professional needs to improve engagement in the work and future personal development. The same people who helped sustain your business will be the people who grow your business as the economy improves. Businesses that focus on their people will be best for prepared for success in the future.”
The personal development of your employees is more important than you might think. You should seek to create a company full of specialists whose skills complement one another. By creating a culture of improvement, you will increase engagement and loyalty in current workers and be able to attract the best new hires.
Do you do anything now to encourage or help employees get further education? Training and personal development is a big key to success. You can start rather cheaply, even connecting employees with some free web resources. Pass on books that will be helpful to employees as they do their jobs. Of course, a commitment to company wide improvement means that you also need to be committed to your own self improvement and education.
What are you going to do about this?
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Hello, I’m Bradford Shimp. I am an education-junkie, and can’t begin to tell you how much my thirst for learning has helped me. You can connect with me on Facebook or Twitter.
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