When you heavily invest in learning and development for your employees, you expect to see a return on your investment. Trying new programs and bringing in expert guests to help your team is not always cheap. However, many business owners don’t always see the ROI they were expecting, and it can be frustrating when you foresee several benefits. While learning and development can be highly beneficial, you might not be seeing the desired results for some of the following reasons:
The Content Isn’t Relevant for Your Business
When looking at improving learning and development ROI, business owners need to focus on content that will actually relate to their business practices, daily operations, and employees. Adopting the same learning and development programs as other businesses that experienced success can be tempting, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be right for you.
Spend time and money on content that will serve your learners and be relevant to their roles. Sometimes, this can involve aligning yourself with a leadership training company that provides training programs to suit your unique business needs.
The Content Isn’t Delivered in the Right Way
We all learn differently. Some people are visual learners and thrive on pictures, charts, and diagrams, while others are auditory learners who listen and absorb information through a video, audio tape, or live speaker. You might even have employees who are readers and writers, preferring to learn new things through textbooks, or kinaesthetic learners who learn through doing. Use a variety of styles in your learning and development content, and you might improve your chances of engagement and getting the ROI you expect.
Learning and Development Is Too Expensive
Learning and development programs shouldn’t be out of reach of any small or large business trying to help their employees reach their full potential. If a program is not competitively priced, there’s a smaller chance of a company being able to make a return on its investment. Identify your goals with learning development and find programs that align with them. You can then shop around until you encounter one that allows you to recoup the costs through positive business changes that boost your future profit potential.
You Only Invested Once
While employees are bound to get value from one-off training sessions and multi-day workshops, business owners should commit to providing ongoing training. Refresher courses and training video series might help cement important business ideals you want to make permanent in your business. View learning and development like muscle toning at the gym. Going to the gym once won’t tone your muscles, but you’ll see results with consistency and ongoing training sessions.
Your Employees Are Overwhelmed
Any change within a business can be overwhelming and stressful, and learning and development programs are no different. An abundance of information in a single training session is not always easy for employees to digest.
If you believe too much new information will not help you achieve the expected ROI, consider breaking down the information into smaller modules. Often, five to 10-minute sessions are more helpful than hours-long ones for ensuring employees retain valuable details.
Learning and development programs can be valuable, but not all will be valuable for your business. If you’re finding that the return on your investment is less than satisfying, you might find it’s for one or all of these reasons above.