TRAINING’S SOUNDEST INVESTMENT

September 29, 2014

How important is training investment to your business or industry?

An international study conducted by Bo Hansson of Sweden’s Malardalen University, after surveying companies in twenty-six countries, suggests that, “the single most important factor associated with profitability is how much is invested in training . . .”

Moreover, a U.S. Department of Education study found that by increasing an individual’s training by 10%, productivity is increased by 10%. Compare that to only a 6% productivity increase when adding 10% to workers’ hours and only a 3.2% increase when increasing employee stock ownership by 10%.

Properly designed media-based training combined with a valid skills assessment will add even more value to these DOE numbers. And, your greatest returns will come from technology-delivered training that is rooted in full motion video and optional full (word-for-word) audio — because that is the only courseware designed to effectively train the two-fifths of your workforce who are non-reading fluent.

With video-based instruction, the costs associated with traditional training can be reduced. That is because, combined with a valid skills assessment, no longer will everyone be taking the same training. Instead, assigned training will be designed to fill in employee knowledge gaps, which will reduce the biggest single training expenditure you’ve always had — the “people costs.”

Tailoring the training through skills assessments will bring you the greatest ROI. The overall savings will be a reduction of 25-60% as opposed to traditional classroom instruction. You’ll also see the increased benefits accompanying 50-60% greater retention than can be achieved with traditional classroom instruction. And these new training initiatives will allow more employees to be trained in a shorter period of time.

Economically, your organization’s investments in training make the best business sense — but, only if you, then, provide the training that speaks to today’s learning culture. And, that means training that is designed around full motion video, graphic animations and/or simulations.