A well-trained workforce contributes towards a healthier workplace
Published on July
Lifelong learning – formal (structured), non-formal (embedded), as well as informal (not organised nor structured and unintentional) learning activities undertaken throughout life – provides people with access to personal, social and occupational opportunities. It leads to the acquisition and to the improvement and updating of transversal skills, knowledge, competences, and qualifications, strengthening an individual’s employability or job mobility prospects. It also empowers and promotes the participation of older workers as they acquire ‘new skills’ relevant to ‘new jobs’.
On the other side of the spectrum, employee training contributes towards the economic well-being of businesses. Well-trained employees place industries in a better position to develop innovative products, services and business strategies, enabling them to adapt quickly and proactively to competition and to the ever-changing economic and sociopolitical realities. Employees equipped with improved skillsets, both job-specific skills (hard-skills), as well as soft-skills, help minimise costs related to preventable lost productivity which emanate from a variety of factors. Such factors would include lack of motivation or sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, high rate of employee turnover, and absenteeism rising from occupational illnesses, injuries and diseases, both mental, such as stress and other psychological disorders, as well as physical, stemming from the improper use or handling of tools and equipment.
Employee training is about investing in people. But it is also investing in business and the economy.