Investing in your workforce
EDUCATION AND training are at the heart of successful economies, and are essential for business growth. Yet many firms feel they have to put workforce improvement projects on the back burner because investing in their employees is time consuming and expensive. In New Zealand, the task of training up the workforce is still a large one. The fast pace of change is a challenge to business at every level. The scary statistics show that 40 per cent of employees have difficulty making sense of a graph or chart, while an equal percentage have trouble reading and understanding a memo, instruction manual or even a job description.
A further 46 per cent of the Kiwi worksforce are not confident with working out weights and quantities, which are essential in the manufacturing and distribution industries.
Business leaders like to say that people are their most important resource, but while that statement is absolutely right, it is pretty meaningless if it doesn’t get translated into organisational behaviour. Investing in people skills is just as important as finding the funds to improve IT, pay for research and development, or buy new machinery. The evidence of the impact of training on the success of businesses is clear. In the US, a study found employee training which was of sufficient length and quality to be equivalent to an extra year of schooling, raised productivity by between five and eight per cent in the manufacturing sector and between six and 12 per cent in the service industries.
It also has an impact on employee motivation, morale and engagement. With resources in short supply in smaller firms however, a reluctance to throw
Investing in people skills is just as important as finding the funds to improve IT, pay for research and development, or buy new machinery.
money at training without knowing what will have the most impact is understandable. Businesses need help if they are to make the right choices so they can enhance output rather than create another burden on time and scarce resources. That is an area where government can help out by creating even more outreach schemes to give even the smallest trader a chance to access the guidance they need. At a fundamental level however, there is a pressing need to look again at education and how it is serving the needs of people and the world of work. In the past, the mere suggestion of commercial concerns influencing the academic curriculum has been met with howls of protest. But the time has come to generate new skills which are really needed by employers, remembering that fulfilling and secure work is a good thing for people too.