If I had a dollar for every tradie who told me they don’t need to send their staff off to training, I’d be wealthy and if they listened to my advice, they’d be less poor! One of the biggest business expenses is staff, so if you hire a team member and their good, you want to keep them right? And if their skills are not so great but attitude is perfect, you want to manage that, right?
Staff training has benefits not only for your team members but for your business as well. To understand, let’s look at why staff retention can be such an issue for trade businesses.
In the Trade Desk, we talk often about ways to reward or incentivise staff members, and this is because our members have learned that this is one of the ways in which you can encourage staff to stick with you.
Trade businesses loose staff because they become bored, they have no focus on a group goal, they have no personal growth or they don’t feel valued to name a few. Each of these can be combated in their own way, but one such way is to continually grow and develop your team members.
If a team member becomes invested in getting better at their job, they begin to strive, and if they strive, your business benefits. BUT in order for them to get to the point of striving, they need to feel valued within the business, this is simple when you are working with your team to create personal goals, groups goals and business goals.
Nearly all staff want to progress within their career and believe me, most don’t want to leave a job they are happy in. Your responsibility as an employer to is to keep them motivated and moving towards those personal, group and business goals, and the simplest way to do this is through training.
Sure there will often be a financial investment for the business to upskill a staff member, but the benefit is not the staff members alone, it also benefits your business. Furthermore, staff members who feel valued, and like they can make a contribution to your business, will want to stay.
Those who don’t feel valued, developed and lack opportunities within the business, will start to look elsewhere for those needs to be filled.
Remember too, that staff training can happen within the business. Allow more senior members to teach new skills to newer members, there is great team building and satisfaction is this for all involved. Many suppliers also run training that you can send your team members too and don’t forget Bunnings Thursday morning breakfasts, there is usually some training happening there too.
At Tradies in Business, we recommend a combination of paid, community and internal training to help your team grow, learn and flourish.
