What are the benefits of Statutory and Mandatory training?

It’s often unfortunately the case that mandatory and statutory training is seen as somewhat of a chore - something that has to be done, often regularly, and at a cost in time or money to the business. However, there are considerable benefits to both, which we’re going to consider in this article.

Statutory Training

Statutory training is training that’s mandated by law. This means that you or your employees must be appropriately trained to work safely in the eyes of various pieces of legislation. This is perhaps the most commonly encountered training across all businesses, and is the one that can sometimes be seen as an unnecessary expense in terms of time and money. Common types of statutory training includes things like fire safety training and food hygiene training.

Ultimately, these types of training are statutory for a reason. Usually, they’re safety related, which means that they can ensure that you have a safe workforce that’s not particularly at risk from accidents, and you can avoid the loss of productivity that comes with it. Workplace injuries cost the country millions each year, and statutory training is designed to combat this.

Mandatory Training

Mandatory training is usually not required by law, but is instead part of company policy, or is determined by a governing body such as a trade or accrediting body. In terms of benefits, there are two aspects to this.

The first is that of compliance. If you’re a member of a trade body, then you might be required to have your staff undertake certain types of training. This is really important, because accrediting bodies can only work if everyone under the umbrella meets the same standards

The other aspect to mandatory training is that of creating company policy independent of any outside input. Many large businesses have mandatory types of training that they put in place not because they have to, but because they feel that it’s beneficial to have all of their employees trained to a particular standard.

Creating a culture of training such as this can be hugely valuable, with benefits including the following:

• Creating consistency and reducing weaknesses - Consistent businesses are better businesses, which is why many strive to ensure that everything they do, they do to the same standard each time they do it. Mandatory training across a business can ensure that this happens, and will reduce weaknesses by helping to ensure that everyone is at a similar level of performance.
• Improved overall performance - Training quite simply improves the abilities of the workforce, which in turn improves performance. By making certain types of training mandatory within your business, you can help to ensure that you’re running at high performance.
• Increased job satisfaction - Employees tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction when they feel valued by a company, and when they feel as though they have direction in terms of their own careers. Training is one of the very best ways of showing employees that they are valued, and that their own personal development is being considered. The knock on effects of this are multiple, but do include lower turnover rates and increased loyalty.
• Increased company prestige - A final point is one lesser considered, but still important. Companies can boost their reputation if it’s made known that they have high standards within the workforce, and that these standards are maintained through a strong programme of mandatory training.

How to incorporate statutory and mandatory training into your business

Very large businesses will have their own internal training staff and even departments, who are able to manage the full spectrum of training, from monitoring who needs what, to delivering the training. For SMEs, it’s more likely that they’ll need to use some outside help to ensure their staff meet mandatory training standards. Here at Virtual College, we offer a huge range of online courses, which cover most of the most common types of mandatory training. What’s more is that they can be delivered through a learning management system, allowing employers to track exactly where the workforce is at in terms of training. Click here to see the many courses we offer.