It’s springtime, and businesses are “blooming” with plans to keep their companies healthy and competitive. For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), employee training can help them attract and retain top talent, compete for customers, and achieve long-term success. Investing in training is also becoming a business necessity. According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report, 89% of respondents say building employee skills for today and tomorrow will help navigate the evolving future of work.

Unfortunately, SMBs often operate with limited resources and tight budgets, which can make it challenging to compete with larger employers, especially when it comes to training their employees. While 41% of LinkedIn respondents expect to spend more on employee training this year, the companies represented in the survey have 1,000 or more employees. What options are there for SMBs with lean teams and budget constraints? Mineral is now in an even better position to help them with a variety of affordable employee training options to maximize their resources and keep them running alongside their competition.

Scaling from hundreds to thousands of training courses

We’re thrilled to dramatically expand our employee training offerings through a partnership with our new e-learning partner, OpenSesame. Through this partnership, Mineral is expanding its library of training courses from 300 to 3,000. This partnership will give our clients access (at additional cost) to thousands of courses from more publishers, in multiple languages and learning formats—plus course-curation advice and support.

With a vastly expanded Learn course catalog, our SMB clients will be able to train their employees on more than just HR and compliance topics.

Upskilling and reskilling your workforce

Beginning in July, just in time for “summer school,” Mineral clients can access six new employee training offerings. These topics were specially curated to boost SMBs’ efforts around upskilling and reskilling their workforce, and appeal to their employees’ interest in business-critical areas:

1. Cybersecurity. SMBs are often the target of cybercriminals due to their perceived vulnerabilities. They also lack the resources and expertise to implement robust cybersecurity measures. Training employees provides the first line of defense to identify and respond to security threats and cyber-attacks.

2. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB). SMBs increasingly strive to build skills and knowledge for a more diverse and inclusive workplace by training employees how to interact effectively with peers, customers, and prospective job candidates with diverse backgrounds.

3. Communication. Communication training helps employees develop the necessary skills to communicate and collaborate clearly and effectively with colleagues, customers, and stakeholders.

4. Health and wellness. Health and wellness training for employees can be extremely beneficial because it can decrease absenteeism and increase productivity. Healthier employees tend to have fewer medical expenses, which can lead to cost savings for SMBs.

5. Leadership and management. Leadership and management training is important for SMBs because employees who are equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to lead their teams effectively produce improved performance for the entire business.

6. Microsoft(R) computer skills. Microsoft Office is one of the most widely used enterprise software suites in the world. Employees who must “graduate” from free, cloud-based office tools need skills in these applications to perform their daily tasks and maintain productivity.

With these six new Learn offerings, Mineral will add more than 200 new courses to its course catalog. In addition to the Workplace Harassment Prevention, Workplace Safety, and other core training we already offer, Mineral clients can also add their own custom courses to our learning management system right sized for a small and midsized business.

At Mineral, every day is Small Business Day

Expanding our training offerings enables Mineral to live its mission to Elevate Teams Every Day, and by extension make every day National Small Business Day for our 1 million clients.

Learn more (pun intended) about how we solve employee training challenges.