By Dan Berthiaume

young worker

Training workers offers a potentially high ROI, but like many high-ROI initiatives, it also involves substantial upfront costs. The New York Times cites statistics indicating that 90 percent of human resources problems are generated by the lowest-paid and lowest-skilled workers, who have low incentive to perform and are more likely to have unsettled personal lives.

In theory, company growth requires higher-skilled workers, giving SMBs the opportunity to train these lower-wage workers to perform more complex and better paying tasks, solving human resources issues and also helping the company expand its market share and/or size. However, internal training takes productive time away from both the employees being trained and the employees doing the training.

And to accurately determine the total financial cost, SMBs must figure out how much profit typically generated by employees on both sides of the training equation is lost on top of the wages they must be paid while not doing their normal jobs. With the New York Times estimating the average employee takes three months to train, internal training quickly becomes cost-ineffective for many (if not most) SMBs.

Outsourcing jobs is always a possibility, but that itself is a rigorous process involving RFPs, vendor evaluation, contract negotiation, transfer of intellectual property and then remote management of outsourced workers. Especially if the task requiring training is of a sensitive nature, outsourcing may not be a good option for many SMBs that want to avoid internal training.

Training as a Service
Fortunately, SMBs have another option. Many human resources technology vendors offer training solutions as part of their product suites. The applications can be customized to fit specific SMB industry and unique internal needs, and MSPs can deliver them on an “as needed” basis and relieve SMBs of the chore of implementation, integration and management.

Not every SMB training need can be solved by automation, but training technology is growing increasingly sophisticated and is a viable option for many SMBs stuck in a situation where growth potential is stifled by a need for training that cannot be met internally. Any parent knows “growing pains” aren’t easy, but the right guidance and tools for success make them manageable and produce results that make all the struggle worthwhile.