While most business leaders would agree training is critical to maintaining a sustainable workforce, there’s a pervasive counter-argument out there: What if I teach my employees new skills, and they use that training to leverage a position elsewhere? The logic seems to make sense; however, according to a new study from the University of Wurzburg, the fear may be unfounded. The research analyzed the education and career information from roughly 4,300 German employees during the past five years and determined that those who were given the training to develop new skills or sharpen the ones they already possessed were more likely to stay at their organization compared to those who weren’t offered similar opportunities. “On average, training significantly increases employee loyalty to the company providing training by more than ten percentage points,” Professor Thomas Zwick, who heads the UW chair of Human Resource management and organization, said in a university release. This remained true, even in the case of employees who were offered training or certification that would almost certainly help them progress in another organization. “Interestingly, the retention effect also occurs in the case of training content that would enable employees to take a wage-increasing career step outside the company,” Zwick added.