The Western World is suffering an employment crisis, with a lack of people to do jobs and a lack of important skills that are demanded by employers.
So how can you compete as an SME when global companies are able to raise pay rates and recruit all the good people?
We’d argue that developing people is the way forward and coaching and training employees to be the best they can be is a great option for a whole host of reasons.
So give us five minutes and let us convince you why you are better off investing your money in your existing employees.
It’s cheaper
When you are thinking about recruiting someone for a job, especially where there are skills involved you often find that you need to use a recruitment company.
Now, this isn’t a low-cost option and so you’ll find yourself paying out a lot of cash to bring in just the right sort of person. Often recruiters can charge 20-30% of the annual salary offered.
Contrast this with either developing the people you already have or bringing in someone without the skills you need and training them up.
You may need to hire a new person to backfill the job of the person you are developing and in that case, you may want to bring in someone who hasn’t got the skills needed and end up training them anyway.
And for new recruits that are looking for training positions, you can often find that it is easier to source them from cheap (or free) job boards meaning no recruiter costs.
It’s also important to remember that employing people who already have the skills and experience you need will require a better package than getting in trainees who will expect less.
It’s often quicker
There’s a misunderstanding about employing skilled people. Often, employers have an idea that if they pay more and recruit from outside, then the person will hit the ground running immediately.
But this is often not the case. In fact, it can take at least three months to get a brand new employee fully onboarded and productive.
So ask yourself, would it take less time to train an existing employee to do the job?
You get more staff loyalty
If you are prepared to invest time, money and effort in developing your employees’ careers then they are likely to be more loyal.
Researchers have found that Training and Development not only contributes to the employees in terms of skills, knowledge and the strength of the relationship between supervisors and employees but also contributes to employee loyalty.
But it doesn’t just apply to the person you are training. In fact, you find that other people look at the way you deal with their colleagues and judge you by your actions.
So if people see that you are generally acting as a coach, trainer or mentor to their friends then that tends to engender greater loyalty in the group as a whole.
They are more likely to fit in with company culture
There is always a risk in bringing people in from outside. They may not quite ‘gel’ with the culture or may find it hard to adapt.
But if you are training up an existing employee then you already know that they are a great fit, they just need the skills to go with it.
Now obviously you are going to need to bring in new people at some point but many people argue that it is better to employ people at a lower level and coach them into the culture rather than choose someone with more experience who may already be set in their ways.
It’s better for you
This last one is less of a benefit for your company and more of a benefit for you personally.
There’s nothing better than seeing someone you have trained and developed over the years blossom into an awesome member of your team.
This shouldn’t be underestimated, because whilst you spend much of your time wondering how to give your workers job satisfaction, you often forget about yourself.
Developing people’s skills and giving them a breadth of experience pays massive dividends, especially when they are able to take work off your hands and lighten your load.
So don’t discount the fact that when you have trained up your staff you’ll feel a lot better as a result.
Your first port of call should be internal recruitment
Often the first thing we think of when we need new skills is to bring people in from outside but that might be a bad move.
It will certainly cost you more and you could well find that it takes the new person longer to get up to speed in their new company.
Add to this the fact that they may not like or gel with the company culture then the external option is a bit of a risk.
Training people and developing their skills improves staff morale and loyalty to the business as they see that you are prepared to invest in their future.
And remember that you’ll feel better as a result so next time you are thinking about recruiting, look internally first.