Professional Development Opportunities Make Companies Better 

Professional development is no longer just a nice-to-have—it’s a non-negotiable for any business serious about attracting top talent, closing skill gaps, and propelling growth. 

Maybe that’s why 94 percent of employees say they would be more loyal to an employer that invested in their training and career development. 

There are also numerous additional reasons to invest in professional development—not just for large enterprises but businesses of all sizes. 

By equipping your teams with the latest industry knowledge and cutting-edge skills through professional development programs, you can: 

• Increase employee engagement, satisfaction, and performance
• Reduce hiring costs by improving employee retention and loyalty 
• Attract the most skilled and ambitious applicants 
• Future-proof your organization, giving your brand more resiliency when economic or technological disruption strikes
• Give your business a competitive edge

A cloud-based learning management system (LMS), like the Learning Cloud, makes it easy to build and launch role-specific professional development programs that engage and empower your teams. Companies can save time and money by using an LMS to provide professional development training while making learning more accessible, convenient, and engaging. 

Create a culture of continuous learning to deliver exciting professional development programs. From microlearning and interactive features to upskilling and leadership training, WorkRamp gives you the features you need to build programs that work and track learner progress. 

Professional development increases employee engagement

One of the many reasons why professional development programs are important for businesses is that they increase employee engagement. 

Why does that matter? Discover what engagement means and why it’s beneficial to cultivate. 

What is employee engagement? 

Employee engagement has been defined in different ways, but the core idea is that highly engaged employees feel motivated and connected to their workplace. They also have a sense of meaning or purpose in their work, feel enthusiastic about the company mission, and can respond resiliently when something goes wrong. 

Why does engagement matter, and how does professional development help? 

When learners are disengaged from their tasks, motivation and enthusiasm decrease—along with focus, productivity, and the willingness to push through challenges. On the other hand, higher levels of engagement are associated with beneficial outcomes like improved performance and retention. 

Considering these two sets of outcomes, it’s easy to see why boosting employee engagement is in your organization’s best interest. But how does offering professional development programs move you toward that goal? 

Put simply, today’s workforce wants to learn—especially Millennials and Gen Z, who, research shows, place a high value on skill development and professional training. According to one LinkedIn survey, most Gen Z respondents desired more opportunities to move up or increase responsibilities (61 percent) and more opportunities to learn or practice new skills (76 percent). 

Despite this trend, many businesses still overlook the workforce’s desire to learn—often leading to needless (and expensive) employee turnover. 

By offering robust and inclusive professional development programs, companies demonstrate their desire to support, coach, and guide employees throughout their career growth. This helps businesses attract top-tier talent and improves current employees’ morale and job satisfaction, contributing to higher enthusiasm, engagement, and performance. 

Your learning and development programs should be meticulously designed and thoughtfully curated to optimize employee engagement. After all, no matter how enthusiastic they are about their role, no learner wants to spend time interacting with glitchy, irrelevant, or unhelpful training content. 

That’s why employers must offer best-in-class training and development programs. The Learning Cloud lets you build and deploy employee training programs fast, from talent development and employee upskilling to manager training and leadership development.  

Company-wide professional development

Professional development programs don’t just boost learner engagement or attract highly qualified talent. They also ensure every member of your organization is equipped with the soft and hard skills needed to excel in their role—not only for today but as your industry evolves. 

A stronger team means a more efficient organization, happier and more satisfied customers, and faster growth for your brand. With WorkRamp, you can offer best-in-class training to every employee on every career path in every job role.

WorkRamp’s versatile platform lets you build custom training content for every department and team, from IT, HR, and accounting to marketing, sales, and customer service. Choose off-the-shelf content from our extensive course library, or use WorkRamp’s course authoring and content creation tools to design custom-made programs from the ground up.

Effective professional development 

A professional development program should teach a wide range of role-specific soft and hard skills. It should also accommodate diverse learning styles (such as visual learning vs. auditory learning) and include numerous types of learning content (such as quizzes vs. roleplays). 

Let’s look at some key components that go into a successful professional development program, along with different approaches to training, educating, and upskilling employees. 

What are the elements of an effective professional development program? 

Every professional growth program should be tailored to the needs of the company. However, there are still some basic elements that successful programs tend to share.

 These elements include: 

• A clearly defined goal. What skill gaps will the program close, or what other pain points will the program address? 
• Training on a wide range of skills. Certain team members require specialized skill sets, while other skills, like empathy and communication, are essential for everyone on your team
• Employee feedback. Is the program working for employees? Is it teaching relevant skills in a way where the information is being retained? 
• Learning assessment tools. Are learners successfully mastering the target skills and course material? Learner assessment tools are essential for measuring progress 
• Personalization. Online training programs should be personalized to the learner’s job role, along with their experience or seniority level
• Scalability. Can the platform continue meeting your training and L&D needs as your business grows?
• Mobile and multi-platform accessibility. Can employees easily access your training programs and other career growth opportunities, regardless of their device or operating system? Will remote employees be empowered to learn on the go?

What learning methods help employees with professional development? 

Everyone has a unique approach to learning. Taking a diversity of learning styles into account will help you design more effective L&D programs, especially when you leverage the power of an LMS. 

By incorporating many types of training content into your programs, along with diverse approaches to teaching and learning, you’ll empower learners to connect with the material. WorkRamp’s Learning Cloud makes it easy to incorporate all types of content. 

Combine instructor-led training and on-demand guides to build robust professional development programs, from online courses and workshops to virtual coaching and mentorship programs. The Learning Cloud lets you tap into quizzes and assessments, roleplay exercises, social learning, microlearning, multimodal learning, and more. 

With a clean interface and flexible, easy-to-navigate features, the Learning Cloud makes it simple to create visually stunning professional development programs that educate, engage, and excite. It also allows you to track program results and gauge learner engagement to get the best ROI from your employee training initiatives. Advanced reporting and custom dashboards give you real-time insights, while automated workflows eliminate the need for time-consuming manual tasks.

Learn more about using the Learning Cloud for professional development

By using an LMS to manage employee training content and provide online professional development opportunities, your business can: 

• Build meaningful connections with learners
• Enable smoother communication between teams
• Reduce your rate of employee churn
• Increase employee engagement and productivity
• Close skill gaps that are currently holding your organization back
• Attract the best up-and-coming talent
• Future-proof your organization 
• Support a culture of continuous learning 

Level up your employee development programs with an agile LMS designed to accelerate growth. Contact us to schedule a free, personalized demo.