Your People – The Best Investment You Can Make

The bottom line: investing time in developing your people is the best investment you can make ~ bar none. Your people are the heart and soul of your organization, and when they get better you get better, and your organization gets better. Your product and services improve and profitability goes up. Investing in their development is a “no brainer”.

Here’s why ~ everyone knows that having a coach opens up possibilities that wouldn’t open up if working on your own. When working with a coach you can often see something that you couldn’t see before, which often leaves you being more effective and more productive. A coach instructs, guides you in the areas you can’t see or figure out for yourself. Perhaps you’ve tried to teach yourself to play an instrument, get your finances in order, or to get yourself in shape. Most people discover that you can only go so far on your own. When you hire a coach, you have someone that has the skills and expertise to teach you those skills and guides you. Having a structure or program to develop yourself is a worthwhile investment. Your progress will become smoother, go faster, and be accomplished less painfully.

A good example of this is Aaron Judge of the NY Yankees. Judge is one of the most exciting, new baseball players on the scene today~ and while he is just a rookie, people are talking about him as though he may become one of the greatest players ever. He has already hit the most home runs as a rookie in history at the half way mark to date. In addition, he’s currently on pace to beat Joe Di Maggio’s rookie home run record. When he was interviewed at this year’s All Star game on how and why he became so effective, he said that the previous season his batting average was 179. He wrote down the number “179” and kept it on display on his phone. He kept it in front of himself to remind him to work harder each day. He also immersed himself in a specific coaching structure to help him improve. He used the coach to help him work on improving. Today his batting average is 329. His performance is directly connected with hard work, good coaching, and determination ~ he is a baseball phenomenon.

In business when you invest in your people, you are committing to develop them into successes. If you were going to build a house, you’d hire an experienced contractor, construction expert. You wouldn’t do it yourself. When you are developing your staff, your employees, take the same approach. Whether you are introducing a new technology into your organization or learning the latest techniques and strategies, hire an expert to teach your people and do it right from the start. This will ensure that your people take the new training seriously while simultaneously committing to having the results be long-lasting. The trainer you’ve hired is the expert and has the knowledge, skills and experience to train your people accurately and efficiently.

Companies sometimes opt for postponing employee training and development with outside trainers and coaches to contain costs. Later they might determine if an employee is worth investing in after they’ve proven themselves. This can easily backfire, particularly with millennials who have a desire and need for development. If the opportunity to grow and develop is not there it usually leads to attrition. Studies have shown that 40 percent of under-trained employees will leave their positions before the first year is over due to a shortage of skills training and development opportunities. Well-trained employees are more likely to be productive, experience greater job satisfaction and therefore, grow with the organization. Though training and developing a new employee requires a financial investment, not training them and having to go through the process of recruiting and re-hiring can be far more expensive. The Return on Investment in training and developing your employees is one of the best investments you can make in your organization.