Investment in Training for Professional Services Employees: Relationships Between Training, Employee Performance, and Retention

Abstract

Abstract Professional services firms invest substantial time and funding in employee training, and an understanding of the return on these investments will be of great interest to those firms and their stakeholders. I undertook this quantitative study to understand the relationships between formal training, employee performance and employee retention in a professional services firm, with a hypothetical expectation of a positive relationship between training and both performance and retention. In performing this study, I gathered data on each of the three variables directly, and anonymously, from a participating firm, in order to maximize the amount of data available and minimize the amount of bias which might otherwise come from individual surveys. The data was subjected to correlation analysis, multinomial logistic regression analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis. The findings from the data analysis did not support either hypothesis, despite indicating an overall increase in observed performance; however, the findings did point toward a likely positive relationship between experiential learning and employee performance. These findings indicated an opportunity for professional services firms to develop a holistic approach to training which formally plans and documents expectations for formal and experiential training as part of a career architecture consistent with both whole person development and the tenets of Servant Leadership. As an outgrowth of this study, I propose a model for professional services firms to use in developing an integrated staffing approach to skills acquisition. Keywords: performance, professional services, retention, servant leadership, tenure, whole person development