Over the past 10 years of running A Better Choice Network Solutions, I’ve learned that some of the best investments a business can make aren’t in hardware, software, or technology.
They’re in people.
It’s easy for a business owner to look at employee training as an expense. Training takes time. It takes employees away from their normal responsibilities. And depending on the training, it can cost money without producing an immediately measurable return.
But I’ve come to look at it differently.
Lesson #7: Invest in your employees.
Good Employees are Worth Developing
Finding good employees isn’t easy. Finding people who care about your customers, take ownership of their work, and want to see the company succeed is even harder.
When you find those people, invest in them.
There’s evidence that employees value that investment, too. A 2025 Gallup survey found that employees who participate in workplace learning and development opportunities report higher levels of job satisfaction. Among employees who participated in mentoring programs, 48% reported high job satisfaction, compared with just 29% of employees who didn’t participate.
Give them opportunities to learn. Give them the tools they need to do their jobs well. Help them understand not just what they’re supposed to do, but why it matters.
That investment doesn’t have to mean sending everyone to expensive conferences or certification programs. Sometimes it’s as simple as taking the time to teach someone a new skill or giving them an opportunity to take on something outside their normal responsibilities.
Over time, those small investments add up.
Cybersecurity Is a Perfect Example
n the IT industry, we spend a lot of time talking about employees as the “weakest link” in cybersecurity.
I don’t particularly like that description.
Yes, employees make mistakes. They click links. They reuse passwords. They occasionally open attachments they shouldn’t. But cybercriminals deliberately target employees because manipulating a person can be easier than defeating the technology protecting the network.
The answer isn’t to blame the employee.
The answer is to prepare them.
A trained employee who recognizes a suspicious email, questions an unusual payment request, or calls before entering their password into a questionable website can stop an attack before any security product ever needs to respond.
That’s why I would rather think of employees as a company’s human firewall.
Training Shouldn’t Be About Fear
One of the worst things a company can do is create an environment where employees are afraid to admit they made a mistake.
Suppose someone clicks a phishing link and immediately realizes something isn’t right.
I want that employee to call us.
Immediately.
Not 30 minutes later. Not at the end of the day. And certainly not after deciding to keep quiet because they’re worried they’re going to get in trouble.
In cybersecurity, minutes matter.
If someone tells us immediately that they entered their Microsoft 365 credentials into a suspicious website, we can reset the password, revoke active sessions, investigate the account, and potentially stop the attack before the criminal has an opportunity to do anything with those credentials.
I’d much rather respond to a false alarm than discover three days later that an employee was afraid to report something.
That kind of response doesn’t happen because you bought another piece of security software.
It happens because you built the right culture.
Annual Training Isn’t Enough
Many businesses provide cybersecurity training once a year because their insurance company, industry, or compliance requirements tell them they have to.
Employees watch the presentation, answer a few questions, and everyone checks the box until next year.
That’s better than nothing, but it shouldn’t be the goal.
Cybersecurity threats change constantly.
Artificial intelligence is making phishing emails more convincing. Criminals impersonate executives, vendors, banks, Microsoft, delivery companies, and even coworkers. Business Email Compromise attacks may contain no malware at all. They’re simply designed to convince someone to do something they shouldn’t.
That’s why we believe in reinforcing cybersecurity awareness throughout the year.
A five-minute conversation about a new scam can sometimes be more valuable than an hour-long presentation employees watched nine months ago.
The goal isn’t to turn employees into cybersecurity professionals.
It’s to give them enough knowledge to recognize when something doesn’t look right.
The Benefits Follow Them Home
There’s another benefit to employee cybersecurity training that businesses sometimes overlook.
The employee gets to keep the knowledge.
The same person who learns how to recognize a phishing email at work becomes better equipped to recognize the fake bank message sent to their personal email.
They become more skeptical of the text claiming there’s a problem with their Amazon account.
They understand why multifactor authentication matters.
They may even recognize a scam targeting a parent, spouse, or child.
That’s an investment in your business, but it’s also an investment in the person.
And I think that’s worthwhile.
Give People the Opportunity to Grow
The lesson extends well beyond cybersecurity.
Technology changes. Businesses change. Industries change.
The skills that made someone successful five years ago aren’t necessarily the skills they’ll need five years from now.
Business owners have a choice.
We can complain that employees don’t have the skills we need, or we can help good employees develop those skills.
Not everyone will take advantage of every opportunity. But I’ve found that good people generally appreciate being trusted with more responsibility and being given opportunities to grow.
And when employees grow, the business grows with them.
Ten Years Later
After 10 years in business, I’ve invested in plenty of technology.
Servers have been replaced. Computers have been upgraded. Software platforms have come and gone. Some of the technology we relied on when A Better Choice Network Solutions started doesn’t even exist anymore.
That’s the nature of technology.
But the investment you make in people can last much longer.
Teach them.
Give them good tools.
Give them opportunities.
And create an environment where they’re comfortable asking questions and admitting mistakes.
Because one of the best investments you can make in your business isn’t another piece of technology.
It’s the people using it.