LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS: WHAT IS IT AND HOW IT IS HELPING WITH EMPLOYEES’ RETENTION IN THE COMPANIES

LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS: WHAT IS IT AND HOW IT IS HELPING WITH EMPLOYEES’ RETENTION IN THE COMPANIES

Introduction

Learning is a continuous process. People learn different things even after they start working and earning for themselves. We, as humans, always strive for knowing more and more. We always try to learn many things and thus this process continues for our lifetime. By learning more and more we are also developing ourselves. We are polishing our skills and therefore making ourselves

What is Learning and Development (L&D) program?

Many organizations had seen many uphill battles post COVID-19 era. People left the companies due to several reasons which is why, many companies lost a huge amount of workforce. This resulted in decline of the productivity and performance of the company as a whole.

There are many reasons why an employee leaves an organization. One of the major reasons of their resignation is the lack of interest in the company.

Younger and newer job seekers search for those companies that would help them learn and polish their skills. When proper guidance is not observed many employees leave the companies thus creating several vacancies. Therefore now a day’s companies are doing their best to grow the retention of their employees. It is observed that increasing the incentives is not quite enough for making the employees stay in the company. Job seekers search for companies that stand out of the crowd. They search for such companies that does things that many do not. They search for the one that could help them to grow.

One of the methods the companies can do this is by implementing their retention program known as the learning and development commonly known as L&D program.  Learning and development programs (L&D) are a very appealing benefit. Skill training is one of the criteria that job seekers search for. They choose those companies that would help them polish their skills and help them in learning new skills. In these programs, companies provide the employees with sources that could develop their skills.

Goals of Learning and Development programs?

One of the major reasons why companies implement learning and development program is to make the employees stay in their company for as long as they could. There are many companies that are trying to find ways to maintain their number of employees. Since post COVID, many companies are finding it hard to fill up the vacancies that have created during the pandemic.

Apart from these there are several other factors why they implement these kinds of programs. Below listed are a few of them:

1. To provide the employees with job-related knowledge:

The main motto of any learning and development program of a company is to provide the employees with job related knowledge. Almost all the companies hire employees who are freshly graduated. Since they do not many terminologies and knowledge related to the job, learning and development program proves to be a very effective way tp make them educate. This would help the new recruits to cope up with the working dynamics of the company.

2. To improve the confidence and morale of the employees:

Many employees lack confidence in themselves. Although they are highly talented, they fail to boost their morale themselves. Therefore it is very essential for the company to improve the confidence and morale of the employees. this can be done by implementing the learning and developing program. By learning and polishing the skills, employees would be able to perform better in their work. This would increase their confidence. Giving them opportunities to learn will boost their morale and they would try their level best to do more work with more efficiency for the company.

3. To improve the efficiency of the organization:

By boosting the confidence of the employees in your company, you are improving the efficiency of the organization. Satisfied and better skilled employees increase the work efficiency. They try to work more and complete the set targets within stipulated time.

4. To improve the productivity of the employees:

One of the basic goals that a company has is to increase its productivity. Productivity of the company is increased when the productivity of the employees is increased. Employees’ productivity increases when they feel motivated to do the job. This sense of motivation is created when they are given more learning opportunities. So in this manner a good learning and developing (L&D) program helps to increase the productivity of the employees.

5. To reduce the needs for monitoring:

Monitoring the works of employees takes a lot of efforts and time. Monitoring is required because many employees are not so skilled or they do not have the capability and understanding to do those tasks. So it takes a lot of efforts to first make them understand the goal of the task and then telling them how to approach the problem. Whereas a skilled and develop employee would try to complete this task by following or applying his skill. This would take less time to complete the task and less monitoring is required for such kind of employees. Therefore L&D programs can be utilized as a mean to reduce the need for more monitoring.

6. To increase the flexibility and scalability:

By giving opportunities to the employees to learn and develop new skills, a company is increasing its flexibility. This learning and developing program helps to instill a sense of responsibility thus making the employees think for the future of the company. They would start thinking about future projects with new innovations and collaborations that could be profitable to the company. Thus learning and developing program can be used to increase the flexibility and the scalability of the company.

7. To train the employees for future endeavors:

Through learning and developing programs a company is basically training their employees for future opportunities. Employees who take this opportunity to learn more and develop themselves become a candidate for further leadership opportunities. They can also become eligible to work in different domains, thus showcasing their skills and utilizing it for the betterment of the company.

Benefits of implementing learning and development (L&D) programs for the company.

While there are several goals for the companies that they want to achieve by implementing learning and development (L&D) programs, there are several benefits of it as well.

1. Addressing the weaknesses and strengthening them:

There are many companies that have employees who are not so skilled when compared to other employees. These are some of the weaknesses that could be strengthened by implementing learning and developing program. Many companies often ignore these shortcomings.

2. Improving employees’ performance:

By giving them the opportunity to learn and develop themselves, you as a company are indirectly improving your performance. Training the employees and making them learn improve their performance. This makes them more productive. Employees after learning new skills would try to work with much more precision and accuracy thus improving their performance.

3. Satisfaction is increased

Younger job seekers today often search for organizations or companies that would give them satisfaction. They search for such organizations that can give them the freedom to learn more and new things which would develop their working productivity. Since a company is giving them the tools they need to develop themselves, they feel satisfied and they become zeal to work more for the company. This motivates them to work for the company thus reducing the turnovers.

4. Less turnovers:

Increased turnovers is seen where there is a lack of satisfaction amongst the employees. This is usually seen when the employees are not motivated to do work or feel the work as monotonous. Learning new skills and developing new talents would keep them more focused and they would feel more motivated to be good in their jobs. When employees feel that their overall development is valued then they would feel more connected to the company thus making them work selflessly for the company. This kind of motivation would help make them stay and work for the company resulting in fewer turnovers in the company.

5. Developments of a team as a whole:

A team is successful when the team members are good. Skilled team members can together work with great dedication and make the company more productive and more successful. The skill developments of each team members ensure that the team is better than the others thus increasing the efficiency of the company.

6. New ideas and different perspectives to do the same task:

By giving opportunities to learn and develop, the companies are generating new ideas and new perspectives to tackle the same task. When given with opportunities to enhance their skills, employees are morally boosted. Their confidence is increased. This make them feel more connected to the company thus sharing a deep bond with the values and goals of the company. This feeling of attachment would make them think of ideas that would make them more productive. They would think of new perspectives to do the same task.

This program is much more beneficial for the company as well because they get different perspectives to do the same task making them stand out of the crowd and attracting more number of talents to the company due to their uniqueness.

How to implement learning and developing programs?

We came across the goals of learning and developing program. We saw about the benefits of these kinds of programs. But let us look at how we can implement this program. What are the ways of implementing Learning and Developing Program?

Below are some of the few ways to implement these programs in your company:

1. Conducting workshops:

One of the surest methods to implement this program is by conducting workshops. Conduct workshops based on different skills every month or twice a month. By conducting workshops you are also giving them opportunities to work together as a team. This not only increases the individual’s skills but also develop cordial bonding between the team members. having cordial relation among the employees and is a very important factor in running the company.

2. Conducting seminars:

Another great way to share knowledge and boost the confidence of the employees is by conducting seminars. Share the goals of the company to other fellow employees by conducting seminars. Make them realize the true motto and goals of your company. Invite guest speakers to share their own stories and experiences. Make them share the skills that they used to achieve the success. By listening to these stories employees would get motivated to learn these skills and make themselves much more better.

3. Giving access to online skill development courses to all the employees:

This is the era of modern technology and advancements. One can gather and increase his / her knowledge through the sources available online. There are several websites which provides free education to everyone. Websites such as ‘coursera’ offer courses based on skill developments and other various topics. Employees can increase their soft skills by utilizing the courses from these websites. There are many companies in the world that give opportunities to their employees to utilize these courses for their own benefits. This gives the employees opportunity to learn more and increase his / her efficiency and productivity.

Conclusion

Since learning is a continuous process it is natural that people want to learn new things even after they are financially stable in life. Since many companies are losing their employees and a huge turnover is observed, companies are trying new ways to make these turnovers less. One of the best ways to ensure this is by giving the freedom to the employees to learn and develop new skills. By providing them with opportunities, companies are indirectly increasing their productivity as well as their efficiency. This can be done by implementing learning and developing programs. There are many benefits that could be gained by the company by implementing these programs.

Hope this article helped you in understanding the power of a good learning and developing program. Stay tuned for more such contents.