Business runners need to keep in mind one thing, employees aren’t going to be with their company forever, but they have a crucial role in business growth. Therefore, focusing on employee development is paramount when a company plans expansion.
As a business manager, it’s essential to take an active role in developing your team because it demonstrates concern for their future and confidence that your company will grow. Showing employees that you care about their progress and supporting them in building extra skills provides them with a feeling of value, community, and significance, which is crucial these days because companies worldwide struggle to retain and attract talent.
If you want to grow your company, help your team develop their skills, and not just the ones they can use to complete their jobs.
Here are some further recommendations on using employee development to grow your business.
Create individual development plans and set goals
Instead of deciding alone how to develop your team, ask your employees to share their sources of motivation and the skills they want to acquire or improve. This method promotes engagement and encourages your employees to actively establish their roles in your organization and map their career paths.
An individual development plan implies that each employee decides what career opportunities they want to pursue. Then you help them identify the professional skills they need to improve to benefit from these opportunities. It’s essential to outline the development plans together to ensure that you have identified the correct skills. Depending on what skills they need to work on, you can provide them with access to conferences, online courses, or workshops. Suppose more of your employees are interested in the same career path; you can hire a keynote speaker to mentor them and provide them with information they wouldn’t be able to access otherwise.
Build a learning management system
It’s a challenging task to run a business, and try adding employee career development on top of it, and you’ll get overwhelmed for sure. Luckily you can create a system that supports your efforts and even automates some processes so you can have more free time to focus on management tasks.
You can collaborate with a development company to create a learning management system to automate and manage your employee education and training. The system would centralize all tools and information necessary. It could include online courses, assessments, quizzes, and track course completion.
Let’s say that some of your employees want to get into management; then they gain access to the necessary courses that provide them with management skills. The learning management system would offer access to courses, help them evaluate their knowledge and track their progress.
Start a mentoring program
Mentorship programs benefit both employers and employees. While the mentee acquires the necessary skills and knowledge to complete their tasks flawlessly, the mentor thrives from gaining leadership experience. Suppose you want to take full advantage of mentoring programs. In that case, you can also try reverse mentoring, where new employees share fresh experiences and ideas with seasoned employees and help them find innovative solutions to their problems.
A mentorship program enables your team to develop essential professional skills like teamwork, leadership, and networking.
Here are some recommendations on how to start a mentoring program.
– Ask mentees and mentors to provide information about their experience and interests so you can match them according to their shared preferences and needs. You can also use surveys to increase engagement and ensure you pair the right people together.
– The main criteria when pairing mentees and mentors should be similar interests. For example, you can pair a new employee who is interested in marketing with a seasoned mentor who counts it as a strength.
– Ensure that the mentors and mentees have regular check-in meetings so they can make the most of this experience.
Use external training
Sometimes you might lack the necessary resources to provide your employees with the required education in-house, and you need to look for external opportunities. Don’t get stuck with an insular development plan. Depending on the size of your business, you can provide external training in the form of conferences, online courses, or tuition reimbursement.
Your business budget decides the extent of external training you afford. Suppose you need to work with a smaller budget. In that case, your best options are collaborating with professional organizations, joining a local network that provides you with access to seminars, hiring keynote speakers, or collaborating with third-party service providers.
Provide opportunities for skill practice
Your employees need to practice the skills they acquired through training. And let’s remember that practice is usually an effective learning method. Yes, practice doesn’t always make it perfect, but it can help your employees improve their aptitudes. Depending on their acquired skills, they might practice them while completing typical tasks or taking advantage of additional opportunities.
If you want to help them in the development process, provide them with sample projects so they can work at something that mirrors what they would have to do in real life. This strategy is quite effective because it allows them to work on their new aptitudes in a safe environment that faces them with real-life scenarios.
Assign developmental tasks and projects
When your workers try to develop new aptitudes and skills, consider assigning them to projects and allowing them to exercise them. More experienced employees would assist and supervise them to ensure they make no mistakes that would damage the company’s performance and provide them feedback on their new skills.
Ensure that the special assignments are challenging enough to force your employees to get out of their comfort zone and improve their abilities. Only under these conditions would significant development occur.
Final words
Employee development pays off for both your business and your employees. It’s essential to foster a culture of development and growth in your company to help your business and employees reach their full potential. Are you ready to support your employee’s growth so they can support your company’s expansion?