4 min reading time
Technical Skills: Why They’re Important for Your Business
When we think of technical skills, our minds often imagine them to be skills relating to overly complex subjects, like algorithms or computer programming. While it’s not unusual to link technical skills to the IT sector alone, they actually vary broadly depending on the industry you work in.
So, why are technical skills important for your business and employees? In this guide, we’ll take you through what technical skills are, the benefits they offer, and some suggestions on technical skills training for your employees.
What are technical skills?
Technical skills are the expertize and competence required to perform specific digital or physical tasks. No matter what industry you or your employees are in, knowledge of some technical skills will be required to fulfill day-to-day performance.
Let’s look at those working in sales; they need to be proficient in platforms used for the management clients, like a CRM. Whereas, retail workers must have an extensive knowledge on stocktaking and point-of-sale software.
While soft skills are important in the workplace, technical skills, which are usually a type of hard skill, are crucial to the growth of your business and the happiness of your employees.
Why they’re important for your business
Technical skills are important for your business for a variety of reasons. No matter what sector you work in, the tasks your employees perform every day rely on different tools and processes. It’s essential to ensure your employees have the technical skills they need to perform their jobs successfully. Giving your employees the skills they need, leads to happier employees, meaning better productivity. This all results in your business having a competitive edge over others. To achieve this, you’ll need to give your employees technical skills training.
What is technical skills training?
In most cases, obtaining technical skills related to your employees tasks requires specialized training. That’s where technical skills training for employees comes in.
By encouraging learning, upskilling and personal growth, your employees will be more productive and engaged. There are many methods of technical skills training that your company can avail of. It’s all about what suits you and your business the best. Maybe it makes sense to set aside a specific length of allocated time for training, or maybe on-the-job training suits your needs better.
Whichever technical training route you decide to take, it’s crucial to develop an employee training development plan. By talking with training managers and team members, you’ll be able to set your training goals and ensure your employees get the most out of it.
Must-have workforce technical skills
Depending on your company’s industry, the technical skills your employees need to do their job can vary greatly. Thankfully there’s a few basic technical skills that bring huge benefits, no matter the industry:
- Database management
- Company software proficiency
- Project management
- Customer service systems
- Corporate communications
- IT security
- Data analysis
- Social media management
Benefits of technical skills training
Facilitates growth
Knowledge is power, and the more your employees know, the more your business can grow. By providing technical skills training for your employees, you’re instilling self-confidence that they have the knowledge and competence to perform their daily tasks to the best of their ability.
Customer satisfaction
Through continuous learning, your company stays relevant in an ever-progressing technical skills landscape, while helping your business grow simultaneously. Keeping up-to-date with technical skills means your employees will always have the ability to assist customers, leading to a boost in customer satisfaction.
Accomplish company goals faster
It’s essential for your employees to have everything they need to carry out their role successfully. Equipped with the right skills, they can effortlessly work cross-functionally. This means better informed decisions and delivery on target objectives or goals. With everyone working on the same page, your business can accomplish its goals faster.
Skilled employees are happier
We’ve already highlighted how technical training can make your employees more confident and efficient, but there’s many more benefits for your employees and business alike. By providing training in the technical skills needed to perform their role, your employees know they are a valuable asset to your business. This boosts their happiness in their job, which improves employee retention.
How to support technical skills training for employees
Technical skills are important, because they set your employees, and your business, up for success. Fundamental to this success, is a great LMS to deliver this essential training.
The good news is, the cost of training your employees can be reduced by online training through an LMS. The key to teaching technical skills through an LMS, is finding one that fits your business.
Some important features to consider are the pricing, hidden costs, reliability, and perhaps most importantly, the quality of customer support. Once you’ve chosen the right LMS for your company, and implemented technical skills training for employees, it’s important to support them by keeping them engaged and enthusiastic about learning.
Motivating adults to learn is simple when you have the right tools for the job. There are countless ways to make your technical training courses engaging.
Here are some helpful suggestions for keeping your employees invested in their technical skills training:
Show them what’s in it for them
Be transparent with your employees – point to the benefits that technical skills training will bring to them, and their roles. Give them an understanding that training will boost their career success and help them gain new, valuable skills.
Gamify
Using gamification through your LMS improves user experience and motivates them to continue their technical skills training. Some basic gamification ingredients in eLearning include badges, points, levels and leaderboards.
Bite-sized training
To improve knowledge retention, and make ample course loads seem less intimidating, microlearning is the perfect solution. With microlearning, you can offer technical training to your employees in smaller, more focused modules. Some examples of microlearning include short videos, animations, quizzes and infographics.
Make it social
Through social learning, your employees can communicate with other learners perhaps who may be facing the same obstacles as them, or just to relate experiences of the learning process. By using your LMS’s forum, your employees can participate in conversations and share resources.
Are you considering providing technical skills training for employees? Let us know in the comments below.
