Training is vital if companies want to keep staff, survey finds

Workers want their employers to help them develop their communications skills by increasing staff training, and may switch jobs to achieve their goals, a survey has found.

Providing training to retain staff is vital, as company outlay to hire and educate new recruits can cost as much as three to six months of one worker's wages, according to international estimates.

A Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management survey in May of 102 firms representing 149,000 workers found, on average, that the equivalent of 2.4 per cent of the total annual base salary was set aside for staff training this year.

Less than one-third of the respondents allocate a training budget equal to 3 per cent or more of their total annual base salary, but 43 per cent said funding for this area would be increased this year.

'When different jobs offer the same wages, employees will go where they can get the training they need,' said Andy Tsui Lap-fung, co-chairman of the institute's training and development committee.

Francis Mok Gar-lon, co-chairman of the committee, added that various professional development schemes could be made mandatory to improve staff training.