TRAINING was an integral factor not only in the development of staff, but in the formation of a positive workplace culture, attendees agreed.
Tonya Miller said she found the best way to improve employee retention was through coaching, training and development, especially in regard to leadership.
“It’s really important to grow your own,” Ms Miller said.
“It is far less expensive to hire from within as opposed to the outside, and it’s good for the employee and their peers to see their development.”
James Malone said he believed that offering training initiatives was reflective of the business’ values.
“If you don’t train people, it says something about your culture,” he said. “The courses we offer take 12 months to two years and the team presents what they’ve learnt to others.
“To be the best, and ethical, means we invest in people. They are the important part of our business, not the machines.”
Future Institute of Australia CEO, Janet Curran specialises in training and said now was the perfect time for organisations to develop and upskill critical members of staff.
“We’re in a consolidative period and this is the time where you start training people so you’re ready for the wave of growth,” Ms Curran said.
Management and leadership are key areas of training often needed, especially for the development of new supervisors and middle managers.
These people often lack the required leadership and management skills to drive business and growth, causing a bottleneck for strategy being implemented at a grassroots level.
“The statistics are nationally very high — people regularly state the reason for leaving a company is because they were not trained or were having a difficulty with their manager,” Ms Curran said.
“A lot of companies promote up internally, which absolutely has benefits but it also has its downfalls as well.
“What often happens is companies promote the best technical staff.
“Often they’re not being analysed to see if they have leadership or management skills and then they’re not trained to lead their team, provide direction and guidance or make hard decisions.”
Ms Curran said most Western Australian companies did not have a sufficient training and development budget, which unfortunately stopped them developing their workforce.
A range of government funding is available for staff training and could support business budgets. It could, in some cases, be offset to be cost neutral.
“The Australian government, and Western Australian government, are committed to assisting companies to train their staff in so many areas, including leadership and management,” she said.
Ms Curran said that without investment in staff, WA would face the same skills shortage issues of the past.
15 Sep 2025
