TRAINING
Upskilling employees – The cost-benefit to your business Timothy Clark Outreach & Pathways Manager
I
n the building and construction industry, one thing commonly proven yet often under-acknowledged by employers is the benefit of upskilling employees within your business. Sometimes the view in our industry is that upskilling doesn’t necessarily result in a cost-benefit; however, this view couldn’t be further from the truth. Some of the significant gains of investing in training for employees include: • Retention of talent within your business. • Increased compliance from staff. • Management and succession planning options. • Improved processes and procedures. • Reduced supervision and errors. Let’s look at just two of the above benefits in more detail, as you’ll very quickly find just how beneficial the employee upskilling process can be for your business. Remember, we are looking at only two reasons, certainly not listing all the benefits of investing in staff training.
Retention of Talent One of the most frustrating events in business is losing talented employees to your competitors. This leaves a huge void that needs to be filled, generally immediately, but further to this, many of the internal processes and sensitive workings of your business may now be in the hands of your competitor thanks to a former employee. Restraints of trade can be considered,
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Master Builders Victoria
but how effective – or enforceable – they are is questionable, certainly when it comes to the prevention of one having the ability to earn a living. The first thing to consider when trying to retain your top talent is the cost of hiring and re-training a new employee. Studies have shown that recruiting and training a new employee could be as high as 150 per cent of their annual base salary! Take an experienced residential site manager earning $135k per annum. To replace them, the cost to your business would be around $100k. If you don’t believe me, let’s look at what needs to be factored in. • In-house recruitment costs. Yours and your staff’s time to recruit the new position.
• Loss of productivity during the early stages of employment for the replacement employee. • Loss of productivity from other employees who may be unhappy a team member has left. • Significant risk of other employees following suit. In our industry, we see that when a senior staff member leaves a business, many other less senior staff will soon follow. The above explores some of the direct costs from employee turnover and doesn’t even factor in the more hidden costs, such as losing valuable subcontractors to your competitor (i.e., they have followed your site manger to the new builder).
• Termination costs including administration, entitlements, uniforms, tools, and technology.
A final point regarding employee retention is that many courses, such as the Certificate IV in Building and Construction (CPC40120), run for over a year (two evenings a week).
• Loss of productivity during the final stages of employment from the leaving employee.
By enrolling an employee into one of our courses, there is almost a de facto commitment to you that they will
Volume 77 Issue 02
