You Don't Know What You Don't Know: Why Training Is Important
Reviewed and updated in October 2026.
When it comes to employee training, many organizations weigh costs against benefits. Training takes time and money, but over time not training your employees costs a company a lot more.
What untrained employees cost
Employees without proper training lack the knowledge, and often the motivation, to follow best practices and use the company's technology and resources properly. That wastes resources, and it can damage customer relationships and ultimately the business.
What the research says
Training pays off in engagement and retention. In LinkedIn's 2018 Workplace Learning Report, 94% of employees said they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. Engagement in turn shows up in results: according to Gallup (2018), business units in the top quartile of employee engagement achieve 21% higher profitability, along with higher productivity and better retention. Training is one of the ways to build that engagement, not a guarantee of it.
Decide what training should achieve
A business comes down to the people in it, and the best investment a company can make is in its employees. Before you plan training, decide what it should achieve: managing your ecosystem better, improving your security posture or finding ways to work smarter rather than harder.
Small steps count. Imagine an administrative assistant needs 15 minutes to build each custom form letter by copying from a template. A short tutorial on Quick Parts in Word brings that down to a couple of minutes per letter. Showing employees more efficient ways of working, even in small things, saves time and money.
Choose the right format
Training does not have to mean rigid, scheduled off-site courses. Flexible eLearning can be completed and revisited on the employee's own terms, which matches how many people prefer to learn: in the same LinkedIn report, 58% of employees said they prefer to learn at their own pace. Internal training, where trained employees pass their knowledge on to colleagues, is a cost-effective addition and reduces the need for external support.
Why training makes organizations more resilient
Organizations that invest in employee development increase their teams' capacity to adopt new technologies and methods, and to innovate. That matters in a market where technology keeps changing.
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 showed it clearly. To keep businesses running, everyone had to become a mobility and digital workplace expert overnight, and companies that had not completed their digital transformation struggled. Familiarity with the technology, built through training, is what makes a team ready when the unexpected happens. The same applies to security: people who recognize a phishing attempt are a defense in their own right, as described in Training as Your First Line of Defense.
Four training guidelines
- Get the right training for your business. Look for practical, hands-on, use-case-oriented training from experienced trainers and consultants, tailored to your needs.
- Train the right people. Who needs training, and in which area? Is there really a one-size-fits-all approach to best practices for your employees?
- Protect your return on investment. What if an employee leaves right after a certification? Agreements such as a commitment period or shared costs, as with some COPE programs, can help, within what employment law allows.
- Always prioritize security. Make sure employees know their systems and understand why they must be kept patched and secured. The cybersecurity awareness best practices are a good starting point.
Training also runs through our other posts: it is a pillar of every digital workplace strategy, and it gives people the knowledge they need to take on accountability in the digital workspace.
ISEC7 is an authorized BlackBerry and Ivanti training partner and offers training and workshops for Android Enterprise, Samsung Knox, Apple, Microsoft Intune, ChromeOS and its own products, as open courses or as closed sessions with individually agreed topics. See all dates on our training page, or contact us to plan training for your team.
