Why Employee Learning Boosts Retention

• 2 min read

Three reasons to make learning part of the employee lifecycle

In today’s rapidly changing work environment, leading companies prioritize learning and development opportunities. Increasingly, technology platforms and digital, on-demand and mobile tools are becoming embedded in the talent development ecosystem, to foster an engaged and agile workforce – from day one. Investing in employee learning – and making it accessible – is critical to employee engagement and business success.

Here are three reasons why:

Better Engagement During Onboarding

The cost of losing an employee in the first year can cost upwards of 50% of that person’s salary.  Robust and well-rounded onboarding programs, treated as an investment in the employee experience, can be a solid tactic for retention.

Providing consumable learning on topics ranging from culture and values, business objectives, collaborative tools and personal development goal-setting, not only helps employees ramp up quickly and effectively, but also establishes engagement and purpose in the employee’s crucial first days.

Retention and Relevance

Employee learning programs signal an investment in employees’ success – and employees will stay at organizations where they feel there is great potential to learn. Using tech platforms is a simple way to tie employee education to professional development, and to gamify the training experience while creating a community around learning. From a career standpoint and with the rules of work rapidly changing, constant learning leads to continued relevance – a win for both the employee and the business.

What’s more, research shows that leaders in learning mode develop stronger leadership skills than their peers. As noted by Blair Sheppard, Global Leader of Strategy and Leadership Development in the organization’s Workforce of the Future report, “We should remember that intellectual complacency is not our friend and that learning – not just new things but new ways of thinking – is a life-long endeavor.”

Business Success

Helping your workforce adapt rapidly and be agile in today’s changing environment is good for business. For one, professional development increases employee efficiency and effectiveness, and via relevant training, helps to educate the workforce on compliance.

From a human capital perspective, investing in learning and development opportunities for internal resources has been shown to reduce employee turnover. This not only prevents financial losses, but also can also improve your business’ reputation, market position and profitability. Using learning to develop a well-equipped workforce also helps the business to retain a competitive edge and creates more opportunities for innovation in rapidly changing industries. Additionally, learning investments can be measured and tracked, tying them back not only to employee performance management, but also to larger business objectives.Get started seeing the advantages of employee learning programs with a free trial of Docebo.