Why investing in training is the ultimate win-win

A lot of entrepreneurs will tell you they learned what they know ‘at the coal face’ or at the ‘school of hard knocks’. That may be so, but these same business chiefs freely admit that their achievements came from surrounding themselves with skilled, talented individuals.

In fact, the very building blocks of success in business—agile practices, innovation, good management, product design, and so forth—are all created via investment in training for employees throughout organisations, from entry-level to senior executives.

Investing in skills brings with it a multitude of benefits for growing businesses, a good example of such is preventing inertia. Without the injection of fresh ideas and encouraging new ways of thinking, the same old practices become embedded. And when faced with challenges people revert to their comfort zone by adopting familiar solutions, which are not necessarily the right ones.

Training programmes reinvigorate organisations, helping to develop fresh approaches, encouraging independent thinking, and promoting best practice. They reduce a business’ reliance on recruitment to cover skills shortages and fulfil projects, saving money, time, and effort.

At least as importantly, training delivers a morale boost and an injection of energy. Everyone wants to feel like they are progressing, improving, and learning as they go. Creating opportunities to upskill, therefore, boosts productivity, reduces absenteeism, and encourages loyalty.

Yet Close Brothers’ recently-released Business Barometer reveals that half of small and medium-sized businesses in the commercial print sector do not provide management training for their employees, despite 81 percent agreeing that leadership qualities are a must for company success.

Three quarters of print businesses also believe that having leaders throughout the organisation is important, while only 13 percent said leadership was a quality only required in the upper echelons of management.

It’s in the management

It is true, we believe, that businesses need leaders at every level. Although the guiding principles and strategic direction comes from the directors and chief executive officer, middle managers and team leaders have to back up messages and motivate people to carry out jobs to hit the ultimate targets.

Looking back over their career, everyone will remember a manager who has inspired them and quite often one who lacked the skills to lead. The former will have directed their team, motivating and inspiring them; the latter much less so.

At Close Brothers Asset Finance, we believe management training is an absolute must from the grass roots to the boardroom. We see significant long-term potential in the asset finance market, where we are a leading and long established player. That is why we launched our Training Academy which is recruiting and training up the next generation of sales executives to provide the high level of service our customers demand.


The Training Academy is an industry-leading centre of excellence and is designed to help our sales teams play a key role in funding the UK’s growing businesses, enabling them to invest in the next phases of their development and ultimately helping contribute to the UK’s economic growth.
 
Successful candidates are mentored by our existing sales managers and guided through a two-year development programme, which combines classroom based learning and on-the-road experience based training. At the end of the period they take a role as a trainee area sales manager, equipped with the skills they need to do a great job.

SMEs are the lifeblood of the economy and growing businesses in the printing sector make a fabulous contribution to the welfare of thou-sands of employees across the UK. By investing in training and skills, these businesses can redouble this effect, at the same time investing in a bright future of success for their own organisations.



To find out more about the issues discussed in this article you can contact Close Brothers Asset Finance on 020 80030744 or visit www.closeasset.co.uk/print



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