Professional development is highly valuable from the employee’s point of view. After all, the employee gets to learn more about the job and quickly advance the career ladder. From the employer’s point of view, professional development is also highly advantageous. Yigang Tang actually highlights that businesses that do not invest in the professional development of the their staff will not be as successful as they could be. However, this does not mean there are no disadvantages that need to be considered. Here is what you want to know.

Increased Employee Effectiveness

Most companies actually focus on professional development activities because of this reason. The skills that are learned during college might not be what is needed in a modern working environment. There are often changes that happen in the workplace. Employees have to be better trained for the company to be effective as a whole. When the employer offers extra training, especially for the older staff, skills are improved and operations become more effective. Also, training the older staff is often much more cost-effective than hiring new people.

Training Cost

Employers have to decide whether or not working with a training program is actually worth. When required professional development courses are carried out by a private company or staff needs to travel, many extra costs can appear. In some situations it is simply not worth investing in personal development courses because of how much it costs.

The good news is that online learning is becoming more and more effective. Modules can easily be completed by employees with just the use of the internet. The modules that are bought by the employer can also often be reused without having to pay more in the future as more staff will be trained.

Improved Employee Morale

If you are singled out among your peers for specific training, it is possible that you are going to feel quite special. Employees love it when their work and skills are recognized. If done properly, professional development can look like a reward for doing really good work.

The only problem here is that it is also possible that the employee will end up thinking that there is not enough skill and that being sent to extra training means that he/she is not good enough. This is where management needs to step in and highlight the fact that the courses offered are actually a reward.

Decreased Productivity Costs

When referring to the smaller companies or when employees that do training are a big part of the daily operations, the absence can cause important development delays and a lower productivity. As a large part of the staff is involved in the personal development courses, productivity is drastically reduced. The employers have to decide whether or not this decreased productivity is a problem or not.

Final Thoughts

Professional development is something that can be highly beneficial for absolutely all parties involved. However, as you learned above, employers do need to be careful about what is done. In some cases it is not a good idea simply because of costs.