As a business owner or manager, retaining your strongest employees over the long term is crucial. After all, continually hiring and training new workers takes time and effort. You don’t want to risk losing high-performing team members to a competitor. 

One of the best ways to ensure that your workers stick around is to nurture their skill development.

According to a recent Deloitte study, companies that encourage employees to learn new skills are 98% more likely to keep high-performers on the team. They’re also 57% more likely to be able to anticipate challenges and respond effectively.

What’s more, companies that recognize essential skills are 107% more likely to place their talent in positions that align with their capabilities. Matching your employee’s aptitudes to their daily responsibilities will ensure that your operations run smoother in every regard.

With that in mind, here are some of the most important skills your employees can benefit from.

Customer Service Skills

Customers are the lifeblood of any business. Without them, a company would generate no revenue and have no real reason to exist.

One of the best things you can teach your employees is customer service skills. Even if they don’t directly interact with your clients, they can use these skills in other business areas, including working with colleagues.

Appropriate customer experience skills include active listening, empathy, and solutions training.

With active listening, your employees will learn to focus directly on the customer and their problem or question. They’ll seek to understand what the issue is in order to take appropriate action.

Empathy is closely related to active listening. With the right training, your employees will learn to put themselves in another person’s shoes to understand their thought processes and where they’re coming from.

Finally, solutions training helps employees seek out-of-the-box answers for customer issues. They’ll learn to focus on resolving the situation and avoid feelings of frustration or anger.

Leadership Development Skills

Most people begin their careers in entry-level positions but aim to move up to a supervisory or management-level role at some point. Some employees even aspire to administrative or executive positions. You can help prepare them for the future by developing their leadership skills.

Essential leadership skills include strategic thinking, confidence, and decision-making. 

Leaders must be strategic thinkers, considering the big picture before making important decisions. They must look past an action’s short-term impact to understand its potential long-term effects. With the proper training, your employees will come to see their departments as an essential part of your organization.

Another critical skill to learn is confidence. Often, younger employees aren’t yet comfortable with their knowledge. They may be unwilling to take risks because they’re scared of failure. Developing confidence can help them overcome their fears and be assertive on the job.

Finally, every leader must learn to make decisions, some of which may be difficult, like downsizing or instituting pay cuts. Good training can help employees understand the skills they’ll need to be influential decision-makers.

Communication Skills

Communication is at the heart of every business interaction. All employees can benefit from better communication skills, which they can use at work or in their personal relationships. Employees benefit from specific communication skills: public speaking, persuasion, and written communication.

In public speaking, workers learn to talk confidently about various topics, such as business or leadership. Strong public speaking skills allow professionals to express key ideas and network with other like-minded individuals in their communities.

Persuasion is particularly helpful for those who work in sales and marketing.

With this skill, your employees will learn to “read the room” and pick up on what others are thinking. They can use these intuitive insights to motivate or convince customers that a particular product can meet their needs. Persuasion is also beneficial for employees who often engage in negotiation, such as sales managers or legal analysts. 

Finally, some employees can benefit from written communication skills. When your workers learn to be better writers, they’ll have an easier time interacting with clients, colleagues, and higher-ups efficiently and professionally.

Give Your Employees the Skills They Need

AssetHR is here to help you help your employees by sharpening their professional skills. Contact us today to learn about our skills-focused VIP customer service training and enterprise-level technology tools.