by Steve Todd

Attending an all-day seminar, or even a three-day conference, may not sound like your idea of time well spent. However, getting out of the office for a day or more and gaining new knowledge is actually one of the best things you can do for your career and your job satisfaction. When your workplace sends you to training, seminars, or conferences, they are investing in your future. Instead of complaining about attending a workshop now and then, think about all you gain during this excursion away from your everyday tasks. Here are seven reasons the next time your employer offers to send you to a training, you should answer with a resounding “yes.”

1. Sharpen Existing Skills

Maybe you already know how to do your job, and maybe you do it well. But what if there were aspects of your job that could be made easier, and you just didn’t realize it? Oftentimes, an outsider looking in on your work world can see things you overlook. Being open to input from outside sources always leads to new ways of seeing things, even when you’ve been following the same routine for several years.

For example, if you work in sales, wouldn’t it be nice if landing sales came a little bit easier? There are multiple ways to sharpen your sales skills, and as times change and technology advances, so do the strategies you should employ. If you were to continue using the knowledge you have today, the same knowledge you gained during your first week of work when you were training and shadowing other employees, and you didn’t take time to build on that knowledge each year, it wouldn’t take long before you were falling behind and those that were receiving fresh trainings were outperforming you.

Attending training and conferences allows you to see new ways of performing the same task. Not only does it benefit you in the workplace, but you could gain a new perspective to carry with you in every aspect of your life.

2. Learn New Skills

Training is great for sharpening existing skills, but they can also introduce you to new skills. If your workplace acquires a new type of machinery or employs a new software and you aren’t familiar with it and don’t know how to use it, are you going to figure it out on your own? Surprisingly, many people would. But, just as getting to a new destination without a map could take you all over the country, attempting to know a new tool without instructions could eat up valuable time and you still won’t know the right path. Formal training gives you an overview of everything the new tool is capable of doing.

Learning new skills makes your value as an employee greater. There’s a bonus that comes with training that offers new skills. They often also offer a certification.

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3. Increased Productivity

Maybe you don’t care about increased productivity, because after all, it’s not your business. However, maybe you should. When you become a part of the reason productivity is increased, you also become indispensable. Good output gets you recognized by everyone in the company. It can also get you bonuses.

The best way to increase your productivity is to continually sharpen your skill set. Training offers you ways to increase your focus, better time management, and workplace safety. Grab every training opportunity that is offered to you. In time, you’ll be a well-oiled machine the company couldn’t afford to operate without.

4. Increased Work Quality

Training not only increases your productivity, they increase your quality of work. That’s because when you attend training you’re gaining all kinds of tools to perform your job better. Training as simple as how to deal with difficult people are capable of improving the quality of your work, because if you can deal with difficult people, you won’t overheat and become distracted when a co-worker offends you. Efficiency may be important, but quality tops the list when it comes to employee performance.

When employees attend training, they don’t just improve their own work performance. Whether they know it or not, they bring the knowledge they have gained back to the workplace and share it with their co-workers.

5. Resume Building

The training you attend develops you professionally. Over time, you’re going to have skills that make you an asset to other companies as well. Remember that certification you received for learning how to operate that new piece of equipment? You can now add it to your resume.

Workshops and training you attend, whether they come with a certification or not, look good on your resume. They show employers you are willing to learn new skills and apply them. Even something as simple as workplace harassment can give your resume value. Not only did you attend the training, but you took it serious enough that you included it on your resume.

6. Advancement and Compensation

For every training you attend, you should make sure a copy of your completion certificate finds its way into your employee file. When your annual review comes up, your manager will have to take notice of all your accomplishments over the past year as well as the time you’ve been with the company.

Even if you have a college degree, you should still attend training. Though your degree has served you well, your college courses don’t fully prepare you for every nuance of the job you’re performing today.

Trainings is your opportunity to start thinking ahead. They prepare you for career advancement. Be sure to attend seminars and training that prepare you for leadership and management roles. Not only do these look good in your employee file, they will actually prepare you for how to effectively handle new situations you might not otherwise have been prepared to handle.

Your manager or a manager from another department will also want to review your file when considering you for positions of career advancement. Your training could be the deciding factor between you and another employee who opted out of training.

7. Employee Retention

When your employer invests in your career goals and objectives, it increases your satisfaction in the workplace. That’s because you feel valued enough that you’re worth the investment. That investment includes time off work to attend that training, as well as cost of the training. Employers offer these opportunities and invest in them because they yield a high return.

The next time a training is offered and you’re tempted to pass it up, think again. Training isn’t a waste, but not attending is a wasted opportunity. Think of training as your doorway to boundless opportunities. It offers career progression, job satisfaction, knowledge to make tasks easier, and knowledge that can be applied to all avenues of your life. As outlined above, when you sharpen your existing skills, or develop new ones, your value as an employee strengthens. If you’re thinking of your career as long term, then mix in some supervisory training as well. Learning new skills never hurt anyone. Not learning them certainly held many people back. The only thing training is costing you is time, but even your employer has you covered there.

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