TOEFL, iBT, Independent Writing, The most important thing business corporations should invest in is the education and training of their employees. - rewrite -

Writing Topic

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. The most important thing business corporations should invest in is the education and training of their employees.

☆Let’s Think

To decide something is the most important, we need to compare the thing with all the other counterparts. It might be difficult to do unless you know a lot about business. Asking yourself if there is anything more important than employee education may be doable.

Sample Thought Process

1.    Investment is spending resources in something for future returns.

The word investment usually means buying stocks, which will increase capitals of corporations. If the company does well, investors will gain returns (dividends). We also use the word investment figuratively as in “You should invest your time and energy in many things so that you can have wider choices when you try to find a job.” Thus, investment is spending many kinds of resources for future returns.

2.    The goal of the corporation is to make profits.

As everyone knows, the goal of the corporation is to make profits. Then corporations invest their money to make profits,

3.    What does a business invest its resources in?

For example, if you start an ice cream shop, you need a place, some equipment, materials, workers, advertisements, research and development, and so on. Is educating employees more important than renting a good-looking building, buying efficient machines, buying better ingredients, using a famous advertising company, or upgrading or inventing a good product or service?

4.    Well educated employees will contribute to making profits.

What happens if you make more efforts in educating and training employees? Here are some results you can expect.

a.    They will work more efficiently (more work in less time with fewer mistakes) and productivity will increase.

b.    They will educate themselves and each other (less training costs in the future)

c.     They will be loyal to the company (lower turnover rates and lower hiring costs).

d.    They will contribute to evolving the company especially when it needs to change.

e.     They will improve the company image (good public relations).

f.     Good workers help distinguish your company from your competitors.

5.    What about other things to invest in?

a.    Place: Customers may increase. Consumers will give it a try with a new building.

b.    Facilities and materials: You can make better products more efficiently and more safely and they can sell well.

c.     Advertisement: You can make your company known to more people. You might also get consumers to have better image of the company and the products.

d.    Research and development (R & D): The goods and services the company provides will be more competitive.

e.     Improving employee benefits: If employees are not paid well and treated like slaves or a part of factory equipment, they won’t work well. They are unhappy about their life. If they are treated well, they will be happy to conform to company policy, and the company will make profits.

f.     Outsourcing or using robots: You can cut costs for a moment but it might not be a help in the long run.

6.    What is the decisive reason?

［workers > other factors］

a.    A machine will not change but a person will.

b.    It is people that differentiate a company from its competitors.

c.     Loyalty, morale, and passion are vital for a company to survive.

［workers ≦ another factor/other factors］

a.    AI learns much faster than humans.

b.    It is innovation that will make the firm survive in competition

☆Body Structure Samples

Sample Body Structure 1

【Body 1】Merits of employee education

【Body 2】Merits of other types of investment

【Body 3】Your decision

Sample Body Structure 2

【Body 1】Benefit of employee education 1

【Body 2】Benefit of employee education 2

【Body 3】Reasons why employee education outweigh other types of investment

Your original body structure

【Point 1】

【Point 2】

【Point 3】

☆Essay for Ideas and Expressions

The contracts corporations make with shareholders clearly state that they work in order to increase the capital that their shareholders have invested in, and it is often a common practice for a company to treat its workers as part of consumable supplies. However, the people are the entity of a company, and I entirely agree with the statement that the most important thing business corporations should invest in is the education and training of their employees.

Many companies give workers little education and easily make them redundant. Not only do they lay off workers to make ends meet, they try to cut costs by offshoring for cheap labor or replacing humans with robots. These practices cannot lead to the establishment of the company in the end not to speak of being inhumane. Cheap labor, labor without skills and experience, cannot perform well. Also, consumers, aware that cheap goods come from sweatshops, low-wage factories with terrible work conditions, often refrain from purchasing cheap products. Robotization may not be a tide that cannot be resisted, but then the reputation of the company will be all the better if it keeps its workers. At least, a workplace full of well-treated humans is literally humane and jolly. Last but not least, higher unemployment means lower consumer confidence, making the economy weak. Marginalizing workers has little benefit.

There are many benefits in training workers well. If you spend some extra time and money to show your employees how the business works, they will have more interest in it. If you show them how to work quickly and neatly, they will practice it. If you share your ideas about a new product, they can come up with better ones. Straight-forward opinions from the people who actually do the job often lead to a good insight. Employee education will probably pay off more than you expect.

There is an idea that many people work for money and educating them does nothing to improve their performance. It is condescending to have such an idea. People will not waste the time and money for training as long as they are treated properly. Everyone has a desire for improvement and companies should invest in it. Whether stressing employee education is paternalistic or not is not directly related to the thesis of this essay and therefore it cannot be discussed here, but making training optional except for basic one to reflect diverse lifestyles would keep all employees happy and lead to a higher morale. Also, it is necessary to consider other areas that a company could invest in, but my hunch is that other choices cannot really differentiate the company from its competitors, and it is humans, not money, that improve the other areas of investment. They are the root of a company tree and they should be watered.

Personnel are the most valuable asset of a corporation. By investing in its people, the company will thrive in a real sense and increase of such companies will make society better.