Today is all about off-the-job training and the benefits it can bring to your business. Off-the-job training is staff training away from the usual work environment. It comes in a variety of forms such as open courses which are day releases to training venues, but it can also be in-house training in a meeting room away from the office.

Unlike, the ‘hands-on’, on-the-job training provided by experienced staff, off-the-job training is learning by acquiring knowledge and skills from professionals and experts. It’s like the icing and cherry on a cupcake. It’s okay without it, but it’s much better with it. With that in mind, let’s go through the top three benefits of off-the-job training.

1. It saves you money

Believe it or not, off-the-job staff training saves you money. Let’s think about one of your managers for a minute, have they had management training? In most cases, probably not. Imagine if they have management training in a few weeks-time, soon after, they’ll be leading a motivated team, delegating tasks effectively, increasing their team’s productivity, and a few steps closer to achieving your business goals. You’ll be paying them to efficiently manage, rather than paying for them to hold the title, manager.

2. Increases job satisfaction and reduces staff turnover

Off-the-job training increases job satisfaction, which reduces staff turnover. One element of job satisfaction is the size of staff workload and stress. If there’s too much work for your staff to do and it’s not financially viable to recruit more staff for that job role, one option is personal development training in time management and emotional intelligence and personal resilience. These open courses equip staff with the knowledge to manage their workload, their time, and stress levels and help increase their job satisfaction.

3. Opportunity to network and learn from others

Staff training and development open courses are great opportunities to learn from other peoples’ experiences. In management training, managers often share their ideas of management and what does and does not work well for them. In personal development training, staff talk about their challenges at work and discover solutions from other delegates. There are also a couple of tea and coffee break and a lunch hour presenting the ideal opportunity to network and maybe generate some business.

Thank you for reading this off-the-job training blog post. While training is fresh in your mind, why don’t you start conducting your staff training needs assessment? You can download and use our free training needs assessment worksheet. If you’re apprentice employer and you’re looking to support the 20% off-the-job training, all our training courses can contribute to this.

This blog post was originally published by Nick Holmes (Marketing Officer) on sektraining.org.uk. Some adaptions were made in this version.