With employer-paid training, workers have the potential to become more productive not only in their present employment but also in any number of jobs with different employers. To increase the productivity of their workforce, many firms are planning to maintain or even increase their investments in worker training. But some training experts object that if a trained worker is hired away by another firm, the employer that paid for the training has merely subsidized a competitor. They note that such hiring has been on the rise in recent years.

Which of the following would, if true, contribute most to defeating the training experts’ objection to the firms’ strategy?

A. Firms that promise opportunities for advancement to their employees get, on average, somewhat larger numbers of job applications from untrained workers than do firms that make no such promise.
B. In many industries, employees who take continuing-education courses are more competitive in the job market.
C. More and more educational and training institutions are offering reduced tuition fees to firms that subsidize worker training.
D. Research shows that workers whose training is wholly or partially subsidized by their employer tend to get at least as much training as do workers who pay for all their own training.
E. For most firms that invest in training their employees, the value added by that investment in employees who stay exceeds the value lost through other employees’ leaving to work for other companies

The answer is (E) For most firms that invest in training their employees, the value added by that investment in employees who stay exceeds the value lost through other employees’ leaving to work for other companies.

Explanation:

This question is a dilemma for companies: Should they invest on training and development for people who might not stay in the company for long periods of time? In the end, even if the employees don’t stay long in the company, the value they bring to the company after being trained are usually more significant than if the employee wasn’t trained in the first place. After all, the risk for mismanagement is higher if the latter was implemented – and will result in higher loss for the company since the bad performance of unskilled employees might impact the company not only financially, but also reputation-wise.