According to Merrill Lynch, “50% of employee skills become outdated in 3 to 5 years.” WOW, when I read this statistic, it really surprised me. Many leaders think that the experience of just doing the required work, day in and day out, is enough to keep their employees knowledgeable to optimally perform their duties. Unfortunately that is not true at all.

On the job training, meaning training that is acquired by just doing your job, interacting with clients, and talking with colleagues is hardly enough to create productive and engaged employees that are on the cutting edge of their disciplines. Many leaders and managers struggle with training programs because they are often tasked with reducing costs. So training programs are often the first to go.

Consider this though, according to a Saratoga Institute study, “Workers who have good training and professional development paths average 12% turnover; workers who don’t have learning and growth opportunities average 41% turnover.” That is not even the worst of it; consider additionally that the average cost of replacing an employee is 150% of their salary.

Those numbers mean that eliminating a training budget will probably cost you much more than you can save. To support that statement, Motorola has discovered that, “…for every $1 spent on training, there will be $30 in productivity gains in 3 years.” Why then would anyone cut training?

There is a lot of hidden meaning in these numbers that whisper of leadership, culture, productivity, cost savings, and innovation; but they all point to the fact that an organization will be less successful if they operate without formal training and coaching opportunities for their employees.

There are a lot of different training programs available that can train employees on a multitude of things, such as: Leadership, Execution, Productivity, Customer Service, Management, Teamwork, Collaboration, Innovation, Social Media, Financial Management, Technology, etc…

These programs are not always expensive and really could just involve reading a book in a quiet room of the office to hone a specific skill.

I challenge you, before the year is out, to put together a training program for next year, for your employees that will make them, and you, more successful in building the organization. Don’t make your employees “stupid” by failing to give them proper training.

Shameless plug, but if you are interested in execution and leadership training, be sure to check out all my programs that are half-off until the release of my book about execution.

Do you agree with these statistics about training programs? Please share your experience with training and development programs that you have experienced or implemented.