How Offering Professional Development Opportunities to Employees Helps Your Small Business

What is professional development in the workplace?

Employees are constantly growing once they begin their designated role at your business. It’s a company’s responsibility to facilitate that growth and ensure that workers are afforded opportunities to advance professionally. 

This isn’t just about providing avenues for promotion or traditional advancement. It means giving your workers the tools they need to learn and grow. By prioritizing the long game with your workers, you can foster a dynamic work environment where employees aren’t content with remaining stagnant.

“Our success stops exactly at that point where our … individual development has stopped,” said Peter Matthies, founder of the Conscious Business Institute. “I’ve seen breakdowns … time and time again where teams and companies struggled — or even completely disintegrated — because of people’s emotional dysfunctions. If we want to build a truly thriving organization, including well-functioning teams and an inspiring culture, self-development is a must for leaders and employees alike.”

Professional development should introduce employees to new skills while allowing them to hone existing ones. The program should be oriented around your company’s overall mission to create an environment where all workers move toward a common end goal. Professional development opportunities include online learning, workplace-hosted events, offsite seminars and workshops, and memberships to professional organizations. Professional development can also include employer support for schooling costs.

Keep in mind that if you don’t coordinate your development strategy around shared goals that align with your business’s overall mission, your employees may feel forced to sit through boring “advancement” seminars. 

How does professional development help small businesses?

There are several significant ways professional development opportunities benefit small and midsize businesses (SMBs). 

Educational programs are a recruitment perk.

Aaron Filous, strategy lead at Enova International, said that in an environment where employees move from job to job quickly, professional development opportunities can attract new talent. 

“Whether an employee stays for decades or not, offering continuing education is still worth it,” Filous said. “It is a nice perk for recruiting that shows the company cares about the employee’s growth, and even if the employee is only there for a couple of years, it’s better to have more highly skilled employees for the same price.”

In addition to attracting new talent, professional development programs enhance current employees’ skill sets, which can increase both performance and engagement. This means those employees are more productive and less likely to quit their positions, which saves employers between 40 and 200 percent of an employee’s salary in turnover costs, depending on their role, according to Gallup.

“Offering professional growth opportunities reduces turnover, which is especially valuable for SMBs with lean teams where every employee plays a crucial role,” said Pamela Hooper, senior people operations and HR consultant at vcfo.

Development programs boost employee retention.

Professional development gives your current workers an extra reason to stay on the job; it’s a way to empower your staff. Every professional development opportunity you provide allows employees to enhance their resumes and gain the skills to advance into another position within your business. Instead of hiring externally, you can promote someone who’s already familiar with the company.

“By offering … professional development opportunities, employers enable their workers to be more effective and efficient in their roles, which leads to a more productive and innovative workforce that stays ahead of the learning curve, is adaptable to sector changes and gives them a competitive edge over other businesses,” said Emily Maguire, a career and business consultant at Reflections Career Coaching.

One of the most significant reasons professional development encourages employees to stay with the company is that it makes them feel valued. Your employees will be pleased that you’re investing in their future. Instead of looking elsewhere for advancement, they may remain loyal to your business.

Professional development cultivates hard and soft skills.

Professional development is a clear benefit to employees who want to improve their skills and value in the marketplace. However, it is also a boon for employers, which reap the benefits of a more skilled, satisfied workforce.

Professional development helps employees stay on top of new skills, especially in the tech field. Technology evolves at a lightning-fast pace, and employer-sponsored professional development programs can train staff on the latest programs and tools. This keeps your employees and your company up to date in the market.

“Spending a few thousand dollars annually per person is a small percentage of personnel costs but has an oversized impact,” noted David Radin, a certified Dale Carnegie consultant and CEO of Confirmed. “The cost of doing something ineffectively is almost universally much higher than the cost of learning how to do it before you start.”

Development opportunities help prepare your future workforce. 

As your business grows, it’s important to actively prepare and train employees for long-term success. Providing educational opportunities to employees — particularly those who show leadership potential — can be a great motivator. It demonstrates your commitment to their professional growth and future with the company, which, in turn, can boost employee loyalty and productivity. 

“SMBs often struggle with succession planning,” Hooper said. “Investing in leadership development programs helps groom internal talent for future managerial roles, reducing the need for costly external hires and ensuring business continuity.”

Offering development opportunities also allows you to customize training to meet specific business requirements and instill preferred practices. This way, employees are well aligned with your company’s operational standards. 

“When you invest in your people, you’re investing in your business’s future,” said Maria DeLorenzis Reyes, an executive leadership coach and CEO and founder of Training Innovations. “It helps you build a stronger, more capable team that is aligned with your mission and vision [by cultivating] a culture of continuous learning and adaptability.”

What are the benefits of professional development for employees?

Offering professional development opportunities provides ample advantages for small businesses by supporting company growth and employee advancement. Here are just a few of those benefits.

Access to new skill sets

Employees can leverage professional development tools to build their skill sets, which can increase employee satisfaction while bringing more value to their roles. “Focusing on upskilling employees in areas that are directly tied to your business goals — such as project management, data analysis or customer service — creates a direct line between individual development and business success,” DeLorenzis Reyes said.

Many employers offer access to online learning platforms, such as LinkedIn Learning or Degreed. These platforms allow employees to guide their learning with preset pathways while allowing managers to create pathways to help employees grow in their roles. They typically include reward or gamification opportunities to incentivize learning.

According to the recent Employee Benefits Survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), approximately 80 percent of the employers surveyed offer formal training or educational resources for updating current skills and learning new ones. Many also cover the costs of professional organization memberships, licensure, and certification or recertification.

Cost savings through tuition reimbursement

Another common professional development benefit is tuition reimbursement. In the same SHRM 2024 Employee Benefits Survey, 46 percent of employers said they offer tuition assistance to their employees. Employers can obtain a tax write-off for up to $5,250 of educational assistance benefits per employee every year. (This benefit is available through Dec. 31, 2025, as of the time of this writing.) Employees save on educational costs and may consider the savings a major perk of working for a company.

You can entice the right talent by advertising the tuition reimbursement plan to prospective job candidates. Not all candidates may take advantage of tuition reimbursement, but they will appreciate that it’s available to them. 

Expanded professional network

Conferences, workshops and other educational events allow employees to meet a variety of industry experts and thus broaden their professional network. These opportunities can yield great results for both employees and employers by opening doors to mentorship and providing the support employees need to feel confident in their roles and grow.

The rise of digital platforms has significantly expanded access to these learning opportunities by allowing people to connect from anywhere.

3 types of professional development programs employees want

It’s essential to understand the types of programs and opportunities your workers want to utilize. By communicating directly with employees, you can build a program that works for everyone. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Online training sessions and webinars

Online training is one of the most common professional development opportunities. These sessions come with many advantages, including the ability to track employees’ progress directly. Online training sessions are often low-cost and flexible; workers can attend online sessions as their schedules permit. 

The downside of online training and webinar learning is that it’s hard to connect directly with employees. Sometimes, it’s more effective to work with employees in person.

Manager coaching and mentorship

Manager mentorship is arguably the most effective professional development method because it allows teams to grow closer while employees advance their skills and careers. 

Whereas online training sessions are more of a one-size-fits-all approach, manager mentorship provides specific, targeted development to individual employees. This means employees feel heard and are given career direction. 

“If a supervisor understands better how to communicate and lead, everybody on their team benefits, they enjoy their jobs more and the company meets its goals more easily,” Radin said.

By prioritizing manager coaching, you ensure that your workers’ professional development opportunities are being met. The biggest challenge with this type of development, however, is making sure you have excellent managers in place to provide the coaching.

Stretch assignments

It’s easy for workers to lose focus when they grow stagnant and perform the same duties every day. When given a chance to “stretch” their abilities, employees can learn and grow while showing management they have the initiative and ability to contribute more meaningfully to the organization. 

The downside of stretch assignments is that they are energy-intensive for both the employee and the manager. To set up the employee for success, you must ensure that the stretch assignment aligns with the employee’s skill set and that you give them enough time to plan and complete the project. It’s also helpful to give the employee access to resources and team support.

Professional development courses 

There’s no shortage of online professional development courses tailored to various industries and professions. Below are five courses we recommend.

Professional Skills for the Workplace 

Professional Skills for the Workplace, led by professionals from the University of California, Davis, offers in-depth strategies that employees can implement to strengthen their internal and external professional relationships. Suitable for all skill levels, this four-part Coursera series can be completed in about one month, although attendees are welcome to learn at their preferred pace. Attendees also earn a certificate from the university upon completion.

Real Productivity: Create Your Ideal Week

For shorter, bite-size courses that are fine-tuned for specific industries and small business needs, Skillshare offers an abundance of content targeting both soft and hard skills. Real Productivity, hosted by the platform’s founder, provides a 30-minute lesson on boosting productivity through focus and prioritization strategies. Participants receive a certificate once they have completed the course and corresponding project.

Innovation Skills Training

Innovation Skills Training by the Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness helps participants transform their mindsets and become more creative, innovative thinkers. This modular course is available in numerous formats, including instructor-led virtual sessions; face-to-face workshops; and digital, self-paced lessons. It can help small business employees hone their skills and overcome self-doubt to channel groundbreaking ideas and put them into action. 

Dynamic Teaming

Among Harvard University’s expansive catalog of free and paid courses, Dynamic Teaming supports small business leaders in building a more sustainable workplace. In this self-paced, four-week class, attendees learn to shift their mindset to use failure as a learning tool and improve their decision-making skills at the team level. With a roughly seven-hour time commitment per week, small business employees can advance their skills as their schedule allows. They’ll also receive a certificate of completion for finishing the course.

Invest in You: Personal and Professional Development Tips

For those with less free time to commit, LinkedIn Learning hosts an array of courses that can be completed in a day. In just 40 minutes, Invest in You delivers a crash course on transforming your mindset by identifying personal and professional motivators and effective ways to invest in yourself. Attendees also receive a certificate of completion that they can highlight on their LinkedIn profiles. 

Miranda Fraraccio and Sean Peek contributed to this article. Some source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.