Inducting new employees plays a vital role in the smooth, safe and efficient running of an organisation, but retraining existing employees is just as crucial
Both inductions and retraining sessions ensure employees are made aware – and remain aware – of the latest rules, regulations, practices and behaviours within an industry and, more importantly, within your organisation and, by regularly retraining staff, you’ll ensure their knowledge is never out of date.
You’ll also be able to provide a refresher as to how things are supposed to be done, which is helpful for long-term staff members who sometimes fall into their own routines of doing things, which aren’t always the best or most efficient ways of doing things, especially if other staff members are picking up their bad habits or shortcuts!
So, here are the main reasons you should absolutely and regularly retrain existing employees rather than merely focussing all your training efforts of new recruits:
- Retraining existing employees has a cumulative effect. The more effort you put into retraining them, the less time you need to spend retraining them! They already have knowledge of your organisation, the culture and day-to-day work processes, so retraining an existing employee is often faster than inducting a new employee, which can, often, take days or weeks.
- As an employer, you can target your training specifically to the needs of the group or individual being retrained. When a new employee joins a business, the induction provided is very generic and, generally, covers the business broadly, as well as their role more specifically. However, with re-training, you know the employees, their strengths and weaknesses and what they do well, as well as what skill sets need work. You can, therefore, choose training that is targeted to their specific needs which, in the long term, will help your business meet its future operational requirements.
- Retraining can motivate existing employees who may have fallen into a rut within their roles. By improving their knowledge of their area of work, you should be able to improve the calibre of whatever they are responsible for outputting within the company. This can also lead to productivity gains.
- Retraining shows your workforce that you value them. It proves that you, as their employer, are willing to invest time, money and effort into improving them and their skill sets. This, often, leads to greater productivity and a genuine sense of loyalty which, in turn, improves staff retention and reduces staff turnover.
- Retraining employees can bring with it not only increased job satisfaction, it can actually improve morale amongst employees who will, inevitably, perform their roles more competently – and with more confidence and satisfaction.
- Retraining can provide a level of risk management among your workforce, particularly in areas such as sexual harassment, diversity and, of course, safety. By ensuring your employees know what is right and wrong within a workplace, and that they follow those procedures, you reduce their chances of actually doing something wrong or acting inappropriately (or illegally), while reducing your own potential liability.
Retraining isn’t just about re-enforcing things your existing employees already know. It’s also about upskilling them personally. Yes, this adds to their overall contribution within your organisation, but it can also help build their confidence and their prospects of, perhaps, being promoted which, generally, brings with it the prospect of greater pay.
In turn, it can lead to more motivated, productive and happy employees – and that is something that genuinely benefits both the employee – and his/her employer.
Do you have any questions or great tips to share?
Induct for Work – the only online induction system you would need to run online inductions.
