For the past year, at least 2.7 million people each month have said “I quit” to their employer (source). That’s well over 3,500 every hour. Obviously, there are a lot of reasons why people quit, but one that I am particularly interested in is the lack of training.
The Studies
According to three separate studies, people who learn little in their jobs leave quickly. I’ve summarized those findings here:
1. Organizations with a standard onboarding process experience 54% greater new hire productivity, along with 50% greater new hire retention. (Source)
2. If employees feel they are learning and growing in your organization, you’ll be less likely to lose up to 60% of your entire workforce within four years. (Source)
3. A study of employees at Corning Glass Works showed that new employees who attended a structured orientation program were 69% more likely to remain at the company up to three years. (Source)
My Theory
The lack of training leads to turnover because managers don’t care enough about their employees’ personal gain.
Who do you care about the most? You may answer “my significant other”, or “my children”, or even “my friends”, but you’re missing a key individual: yourself. The fact is, we all think about ourselves all of the time.
We have to. It’s essential. It’s the primary reason we don’t get burned when near a fire and why we drink water when we’re thirsty.
Our individual goals and aspirations guide our decisions to where we apply effort and attention. Employees need to have their own desires fed. If you do not invest time into them and show that you care about them, you’ve failed to meet their number one criteria for living life: their own interests. When the watering hole dries up, the animals leave.
Start Planning
As I’ve encountered many types of companies in my role at Lesson.ly, I’ve seen one thing in common with people looking for training software — they don’t know where to start. They don’t have a plan and need help creating one to get their team up-to-speed.
We’ve helped a lot of businesses with the plan part. Over 600 businesses have downloaded our training plan template. After evaluating thousands of lessons and the training behavior therein, we’ve recently updated the plan to include best practices including common topics our customers use.
We received a completed plan template from a new client yesterday, and it absolutely made my day. They had planned out over 30 new lessons to create and are now kicking off content creation.
Begin investing in your employees through training. Their longevity at your company may depend on it. Make your own training plan, or try the template.
This post was originally published on The Huffington Post.