Employees Are Asking for More Training. Are You Listening?

Employee training isn’t a nice to have or something companies can overlook. It can mean employees do their job well and are happy, or they don’t and aren’t. Managers will often blame employees or say that it’s hard to find good help, but it’s unfortunately not that simple. There’s a good chance it’s a manager problem or a training problem.

One of the top posts on our blog is about what happens when employees get little to no training. The top search terms to access that post tell you a lot about how much training impacts employees and their ability to do their job or be happy at their job.

Here are some of those terms.

• no training at new job
• bad training at work
• i’m not being provided with the proper training to do my job what can i do
• new job no training
• no training at work

And the keywords keep going on about what to do when training isn’t provided or is lacking. Of course, it also veers into the territory of employees not wanting to train new employees, especially if that’s not their job.

Training is a growth lever that touches productivity, retention, innovation, and customer satisfaction. When companies underinvest in training, employees notice. They search for answers, they disengage, and too often they leave.

In a competitive marketplace where technology and customer expectations evolve quickly, the companies that prioritize employee training and workforce upskilling gain a meaningful advantage in speed, quality, and adaptability. Surveys from LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report consistently show that a lack of training correlates with lower performance, higher turnover, and weaker morale, while investment in learning correlates with engagement and retention.

Training is important for employees, but how do you know if it’s an issue? There are clear signs to pay attention to and ways to improve training.

The Signal You Cannot Ignore

If you give employees an anonymous way to leave feedback, then that’s a good place to look. Pay attention if there’s a demand for learning. If employees find that the training provided by their company doesn’t meet their needs, they’ll find a way to vent.

If you don’t give them an anonymous, easy way to vent so you can improve, they’ll vent online, searching for articles like ours, or they’ll leave, and you’ll be caught holding the bill for hiring a new employee.

When employees don’t receive relevant, timely training and can’t vent in a way that helps you, they’ll resort to other means of training or leave. That means slow execution, more errors, increased stress, and unhappy employees. The business impact is real and immediate. Productivity drops, rework increases, and customer experience suffers.

Over time, the impact on the business compounds and erodes your market position. But what is the cost of not training if you’re not convinced it’ll have a negative effect?

The Cost of Not Training

Some business leaders think training is expensive and doesn’t add as much value as it costs. That means it’s safe to cut, right? The truth is that failing to train is much more expensive.

It’s important to factor in all the costs of replacing a skilled employee, including recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity, and the impact on team morale. That cost might not be as high for unskilled labor, but there are many other factors that come into play, which make training just as important.

Poor training correlates with increased errors and quality issues, which drive extra labor hours and customer churn. Safety risks increase without proper training, leading to legal exposure and damage to a company’s reputation.

When you tally these costs, it becomes clear that investing in employee training is one of the most effective (if not the only way in some cases) ways to reduce avoidable expenses and protect revenue.

Why Companies Hold Back

If training is so important, why do so many companies not prioritize it? There are many reasons, but none are very good reasons. But sometimes decisions are made on gut feeling or cost only. Here are some reasons companies hold back on training, even though employees are asking for more.

1. Budget pressure and short-term thinking: Teams often face quarterly constraints that lead them to deprioritize training. Ensure training aligns with measurable performance goals so the value is obvious.
2. Time constraints and competing priorities: Managers struggle to schedule learning amidst deadlines and other company goals. When training lacks relevance or flexibility, participation drops, and it gets a reputation as a distraction rather than an enabler. That’s why digital learning solutions often help employees thrive while allowing business priorities to remain.
3. Outdated content and delivery: Static, non-interactive training and one-size-fits-all courses do not meet the needs of most employees or motivate them. Employees disengage when material is not contextual or immediately useful.
4. Lack of leadership advocacy: Without clear leadership support and time to train, training feels optional and tacked on top of the time allotted for the job. That’s not very motivating. This undermines adoption and limits learning teams’ ability to align programs with strategic goals.

There are lots of reasons, but none are good enough to forego training. Changing how leadership views training is essential. That’s why changing how it’s viewed from expense to investment is vital.

Change Training From Expense To Investment

A more useful way to think about training is as an investment in employees. Well-designed employee training that’s focused on business goals improves performance in those goals. That means training will have a direct impact on business performance rather than simply vague skills that don’t mean much.

It’s all about connecting training to metrics, reducing error rates, and strengthening customer outcomes. Quality training boosts confidence and job satisfaction, which reduces attrition. When employees have the right skills and tools, they deliver higher-quality work faster with fewer errors and more confidence.

Prioritizing training as an investment rather than an expense is not only good for culture. It’s good for business resilience and market agility. Framing every training effort from a business perspective makes it easier to move away from treating training as an expense. Gutting learning and development is a major issue, but this shift in mindset will improve things.

Workforce Upskilling As A Competitive Strategy

Workforce upskilling addresses the gap between current skills and the capabilities needed to grow the business. As technology evolves, so do the roles at most jobs. With new tools, processes, and automations, roles are reshaped, and this trend is increasing as AI is implemented across many roles.

Companies that actively upskill employees build a workforce that can work with new systems effectively and more quickly. They can also identify opportunities earlier and help everyone reach the same level of effectiveness, rather than leaving some to struggle.

Training that focuses on essential skills to succeed, as well as the technical skills required to use company software effectively, is critical. The right blend of training is also necessary, depending on what’s being trained on. That could mean performance support, self-paced resources, or even hands-on practice or coaching.

Yes, upskilling a workforce is a competitive advantage. If everything else remains the same with a competitor, prioritizing training will have a huge impact. Training that’s focused on business problems/solutions will map to real workflows. Those workflows, when trained effectively, improve the impact on employees.

Practical Steps To Prioritize Employee Training

Below are actionable steps to strengthen your training strategy and connect it directly to business outcomes.

1. Diagnose skill gaps with a structured approach: Use self-assessments, manager feedback, and help teams define strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). Map findings to business goals. This creates a clear path to performance metrics by converting learning objectives into performance objectives.
2. Prioritize targeted training: Training that impacts the business should be the priority. That means employees should have quality training that helps them do their jobs better, in a way that’s easy to connect to their work. Examples could be customer platform proficiency, process, and role-specific system workflows. Targeted training reduces noise and delivers faster wins that directly impact the business.
3. Train with the right modality, blended or not: It’s not always about blending modalities; it’s about using the right modality and only blending when needed. That could be scenario-based learning blended with job aids, or it could just be the job aids. Avoid purely recorded, non-interactive content for complex skills.
4. Align learning to performance reviews and career paths: Make training part of how you measure progress and document skill acquisition and application. Recognize employees who demonstrate new capabilities through stretch assignments and visible projects.
5. Use modern platforms to scale efficiently: Learning management systems can centralize materials, track progress, and lower delivery costs. They also enable flexible timing so employees can learn without disrupting critical work. A knowledge base can deliver performance support content in an easily searchable, always-available format.
6. Measure and communicate impact: Select a few metrics that matter and are connected to the business. For example, ticket resolution time, customer satisfaction scores, or safety incidents. Share improvements widely so leaders and teams see the value of ongoing training investment.

With these practice steps, you can change training from an afterthought into a company priority. This will ensure employees have the resources they need and aren’t leaving for better training and opportunities elsewhere.

Building A Culture Of Continuous Learning

Companies that win in dynamic markets treat learning as an essential part of the work. Leaders model curiosity, teams share knowledge, and processes evolve with lessons learned. Training isn’t a one-time event.

Training should be embedded in employee growth planning, retrospectives, and performance feedback. When learning is continuous, employees are more confident, managers can manage more easily, and company growth continues. The result is a resilient organization that adapts faster and grows more consistently.

There’s nothing more helpful to an organization than a culture of continuous improvement across all skills, especially in company technology, which is always changing.

Wrap Up

Employee training and workforce upskilling are strategic efforts that can’t be done without. The market will continue to reward companies that invest in skills and systems that enable quality, speed, and innovation. The cost of inaction is high.

The path forward is practical and achievable. Begin by diagnosing skill gaps, prioritizing high-impact capabilities, and measuring results when possible. Make learning part of your organization and make it the standard rather than something employees don’t get and have to search for elsewhere.

Your employees are asking for more training. The companies that listen will build durable advantages.

One of the most important types of training to provide employees is technical training. That means training employees on your company’s software and how to use it effectively for their job. Don’t just assume the connection is obvious; it’s not.

We specialize in technical training and would love to help your organization improve software training. Schedule a free consultation to discuss how we can help connect your training to business initiatives.