T & D Tool For Retention Of Employees

hii.....
Training & Development activities how can become the effective tool for retention of employees as normally it is seen that after getting properly trained & development people move out for better opporchunities.
Please comment to give solution on this..........????
regards,
yashswa.

Hi Yashswa. That’s the eternal dilemma: if you don’t train people, some will leave; if you train people, some will leave. However, if you don’t train people, you will have dissatisfied and angry customers dealing with poor products and services.

To keep people after the training, do all you can to increase employee engagement levels (or at least maintain them if they are already good). This includes-

-letting them see how their job fits into the big picture

-providing regular, timely and tactful feedback

-execs and managers doing what they say they will do

-providing regular information about the company

-allowing employees to have a say in how their jobs are done

-providing interesting work

-allowing for social interaction

-setting mutually agreed challenging goals

You can find out more by looking at the studies by Towers Perrin, BlessingWhite, Hewitt etc. For a more tailored response to your problem, find out why people are leaving by conducting and analyzing exit interviews. In addition, you could conduct an engagement or culture survey.

Vicki Heath

Human Resources Software and Resources

http://www.businessperform.com

Hi Yashswa,
I agree with Vicki, training is necessary and the benefits are reaped equally by the company as well as the individual. The company gains when its internal skill pool broadens, high customer satisfaction, low defects in productions, increased efficiency & effectiveness etc while the individual gains when his demand is higher than it used to be, he gains self importance, he has higher capacity and his job opportunity is high.
But the company has to take a risk in subjecting its employees to training & development. The employee might demand for better pay and the company should weigh the situation and negotiate for a win-win situation from a company’s point of view.
Cheers,
Ashra

Hi Yashswa,
Really confusing strategy.
Empowerment through Training & Development will inevitably lead to enhancment in value of the human resource. And consequently lead to higher attrition.
However, every employee looks forward to value addition in their present employment.An employee attached to such an organization would prefer remaining with the organization if he/she feels that further empowerment through continuous training and development programmes will result by remaining attached with it.
Hence, this might turn out to be a viable employee retention tool.
Regards,
Gulu

hii alll
thanx u all 4 ur replies n info.
gulu : as u said it is really confusing stretagy b'coz u can't say abt the loyalty of employee though he is attached if he gets better opporchunity outside.
vicki : as u said it is the external dilemma n given the tools after training & development for retention. But how only a training & development program can help for retention up to some extend ? please reply if possible in forms of listed points so dat i can elaborate it in my words for writeup
regards,
yashswa

Hi Yash,

True to what the other posters have said. T&D goes out to achieve far more than what can be quantified.

Let me help you focus at the very basic objective of Training & Development

Training : carried out with a view to add skillsets to the current role so that it assists in carrying out the job/role more effeciently.

Development: carried out with objective to give skillsets, behaviors and attitudes the results of which are seen over time.

The value add to an employee is immense. Infact I wouldn't call it a confusing strategy for if you took the ownership of implementing or spearheading it in your own company then you wouldn't want to "showcase it as something even you are not sure of how it works" :-) would you?

The strategy, I am sure, you meant was linked to an outcome and one of the outcome was using it as tool for Retention.

Of recently in a professional meeting I was asked by someone about is it really worth it, should one go for it T&D at all?

I presented the idea saying "If its a choice and you want to decide whether or not you want to do it, then let me share with you the future will always remain uncertain. Employees move and many have their own reasons to do so. The question then is whether you can retain them or not. & not whether Training and Development can help retain people...thats a wrong question to ask in the first place.

Coming back to IF and only IF one of your Company's employee development objective is to "add value to your people" then I need to suggest that ...do not hesitate ...JUST GO AHEAD and invest in it."

For this will do volumes for your company...and bring back a lot.:-)

I hope that answers your question too.

Best Wishes

Nad

I agree with Vicki and Spellbinder.

If you don't train and develop, you are left with adequate employees performing adequately with adequate returns; and with the passage of time, what was once adequate becomes passe and returns become minimal. A very dead end policy.

If you do train and develop, you are empowering your employees, raising performance and returns to new heights. Not only are you motivating your employees to raise their performance levels, but you are turning your organisation into a learning organisation, with all the benefits that this brings.

If you do not do anything further, yes, you are leaving yourself open to competitors poaching your best performers.

But if you use increased returns to improve overall compensation and benefits, and to give performance based bonuses (not increments - increments will upset salary equity and may engender resentment in peers who have not performed that well), then you will retain good performers for a longer time.

At the same time, the ace performers should be encouraged to take other promising performers under their wing, and train and develop them to the extent they can.

And, if it so permits, promotional incentives can also be given.

If even after this, ace performers leave to join the competition, do not despair - continue training and developing their peers and subordinates so that you have a highly trained team of performers while your competition has only one ace!

Training and developing employees gives your whole orgn. a competitive edge!

Jeroo