Do You Want To Improve Employee Performance? This Is The One Strategy You Need To Know

Disengaged employees cost US companies up to $550 billion a year.

When it comes to workplace performance, engagement matters more than you might think.

From feedback and recognition to learning and development opportunities, organizations that know how to engage their workers have a 21% greater profitability and a 51% higher productivity rate.

But how many companies know how to successfully build a positive work culture that encourages lifelong learning and has promising growth potential?

The answer might surprise you. According to research, half of all executives claim that the current workforce is not engaged enough and isn’t receiving the in-house training required for businesses to succeed.

In fact, only 13% of employees report feeling engaged at work worldwide. And two in three employees quit their jobs because they feel stagnant in their career development.

These numbers make it clearer than ever that creating a powerful learning culture is crucial for success because it bears a significant impact on employee satisfaction, performance, and turnover rate.

So, let’s take a closer look at why this is and why workplace learning should be your number one strategy and investment if you’re trying to maximize the quality of your company’s output.

Boost employee performance with lifelong learning

Every employer should make workplace learning a top priority in their organization. Why?

Because structured growth and development strengthens your employee’s skills and addresses critical issues like weaknesses, inconsistency, and performance gaps. It sheds light on the most pressing shortcomings and allows your team to do their job more effectively, both independently and in a group setting.

In addition, workplace learning allows each employee to gain a deeper understanding of the responsibilities their role entails and increase their adherence to quality standards. It can also encourage creativity and innovation when it comes to optimizing processes and discovering new strategies to implement.

It’s common for employees to undergo a shift in responsibilities without receiving much development in terms of in-house mentoring and coaching. Another scenario is rushing through training or not knowing how to provide high-quality customer service. Lack of knowledge transfer or cross-training can also quickly drain efficiency and profit.

Albeit prevalent in every industry, these issues are often the root causes that lead to a company’s downfall.

By contrast, here is how creating a culture of continuous learning can positively impact your business:

• It allows your employees to deliver higher quality output.

• It helps you streamline business processes and find new strategies that boost performance and productivity.

• It leads to happier and more loyal customers that in turn help you build a strong reputation on the market and draw in new leads.

• It helps your organization become a leader in its industry and gives you a competitive edge over other companies.

All of the above work together to help you deliver innovation and leading-edge performance on a consistent basis and stay competitive in today’s marketplace while also challenging your employees and encouraging growth.

With all of this in mind, the most important contribution workplace learning will bring to your business is this: it reduces employee turnover rates and lowers recruitment costs. 

Here is why this matters.

The high cost of employee turnover (and how training can help)

It’s no secret that organizational performance is linked to employee satisfaction and engagement.

In other words, if you want a highly productive company culture centered around performance, you need a low turnover rate and committed employees that work with passion, purpose, and dedication every day.

For performance to be at its peak, you need to invest in people and show them that they are valued within your company; and you need to make sure that your employees are in positions that best engage their strengths and interests.

In fact, 94% of employees say that they would stay longer with an organization if it simply invested in helping them learn.

With Millenials taking up an increasingly larger share in the workforce, more and more employees are now looking for more than a good income when it comes to their careers.

They’re also after job satisfaction, continuous improvement, and fulfillment. And this is something that even the heftiest of paychecks can’t cover

The latest research backs this up – there is a clear link between training and employee satisfaction and retention:

• 68% of employees state that training and development is the most important company policy.
• 58% of employees that undergo structured training and onboarding are likely to still be with the same company three years down the line.
• 40% of all employees who receive poor job training leave their positions within the first year.

To put things in perspective, replacing an employee costs the equivalent of their 6 to 9 months’ salary. And to fully drive our point home, here are just some of the other issues that come with a high employee turnover rate:

• Higher costs (screening, interviewing, advertising, hiring, onboarding, training);
• Lost time, productivity, and customer satisfaction;
• Negative impact on company culture (employees are always curious about why their team members leave);

In this sense, workplace learning is not only a valuable retention tool but also a unique expansion opportunity that allows you to grow together with your employees and create a track record of success.

So, what are the steps you need to take to create a rewarding growth culture (and not a performance-obsessed one) in your company?

Create a culture of continuous learning and development within your organization

Training and development opportunities are key for employee retention and performance.

But how do you incorporate learning into your culture and create a supportive environment that encourages employees to constantly improve and lets them know that their company is invested in them?

Formal learning is definitely an option, but for great performance results, you need to go beyond on-the-job training. While DIY lecture programs are also widely used, they often have a flimsy manner of imparting knowledge with little to no engagement.

Instead, we recommend choosing interactive programs that create a personalized and immersive experience for the learners.

Our approach

At Practical Academics, we start off from a solid foundation of knowledge and work our way towards gaining a deeper understanding and retention through interactive, group-based strategies that ensure a sustained learning experience.

Practical Academics is a micro multinational education conglomerate focusing on participant engagement using interactive strategies. We work on a scope and bid consulting basis, working to elevate your organization’s organizational learning practice

We provide group-based interactive training, education, and development services to nonprofits, B-Corps, schools and educational providers, professional development associations, and local economic development organizations.

Practical Academics provides program design, training and support, and marketing for highly engaging blended learning experiences.  In addition to traditional education program design, we focus on team-based interactive learning strategies to increase student engagement, knowledge retention, and program completion. These strategies include project-based learning, case-based learning, gamification, and role-plays as appropriate to the material being taught. We work collaboratively with stakeholders and constituents to define, develop, and implement programs to increase, retain, and enrich your institutional knowledge.

Our goal is for every employee we train to master their specialty and other areas of interest through blended delivery, mentoring, and mutual accountability.

We aim to create a meaningful learning experience using both mediums (online and in-person) that is highly motivating and rewarding for employees.

If you’d like to know more about our approach to workplace learning, take a look at some of our services and find out more about the most effective team-based, interactive strategies that help you build a strong company culture and boost performance, profit, and productivity.