A well-trained team makes a company more productive. This is why employee development matters so much.
Whether through seminars, training outside of roles or mentoring programs, giving employees opportunities to learn keeps them engaged and motivated.
Managers should work with their reports to identify the skills they wish to develop, and then find ways to support them. This could be horizontal, developing skills for their current job or vertical, preparing for the next step in their career.
Training
Training is an important part of employee development. It helps to ensure that your employees are equipped with the skills they need to be successful in their roles. It can take many forms, including e-learning, in-house classes, online courses, and offsite seminars. Employees can also learn on the job with a mentor, a coach, or another employee.
Investing in employee development is a critical part of any business. Your employees need the right tools to do their job well, and you need them to be able compete in today’s talent market.
Training can also help your organization save on hiring and recruiting expenses, such as outside recruiters, postings and screenings of candidates, background checks and reference checks, and orientations for new hires. It’s also a great way to retain your best and brightest employees. Employees are attracted to companies that offer opportunities for professional growth and development. They will want to stay at those companies, and they will share the good news about their employer with their network.
For example, accountants could receive yearly training to stay abreast of tax laws. Lawyers would undergo annual continuing educational courses to improve legal knowledge. Personal fitness trainers need to be recertified periodically to maintain accreditation. In addition, training can be used to help your employees stay up-to-date on industry trends, technologies, and other information that can enhance their productivity.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a simulation of a job, a job enrichment program, revolving jobs, or cross-training. Each of these tools is a tool for employee development that allows employees to build on their existing knowledge and experience. It also prepares the employee for future roles within the company. Mentoring is a popular employee-development tool that pairs less-experienced employees with more experienced team members who are able to offer guidance and encourage.
Mentoring
Employee development is facilitated by mentoring, which pairs less experienced workers with more experienced ones for a series career coaching interactions. Mentees can benefit from new skills, knowledge and guidance on their professional path. They can also build a solid professional network. Mentors gain valuable experience in leadership, communication and teaching their mentees. They also boost their confidence.
A successful mentoring partnership requires both parties to work in a collaborative way, with mutual respect and an unwavering commitment to the goal. Mentoring programs are not only a great way to improve individual skills but also create a cohesive culture and allow employees to grow as leaders.
There are different types of mentoring, including shadowing (where a junior employee follows and observes a senior worker for a set period), job simulation, job enrichment, job enlargement, and job rotation, each designed to help employees develop the skills needed for the next level in their careers. High-potential mentoring programs, for example, pair junior employees with leadership potential and senior managers to have a series career-coaching sessions.
Coaching
One of the best tools for employee development is coaching. This can help improve performance. A coach is able to provide constructive feedback on a range of topics such as communication or leadership skills. This form of training can also increase employee job satisfaction, boost morale, and build loyalty in your organization.
Career planning is another important aspect of employee development. This technique pairs managers and employees to identify the skills they want for their future. Then, they assign projects that help them acquire these skills. These projects may be horizontal, where employees learn new tasks in order to perform current duties, or they can be vertical, when the employee moves into a managerial role.
This type of employee development helps build company resilience, as it allows employees to adapt to a changing business landscape. A skilled workforce can better handle challenges and respond more quickly, leading to increased productivity.
The best way to implement employee development programs is through continuous performance management. This approach, which is also called the growth mindset, emphasizes learning as a key component of success at work. For your employees to be willing and motivated to follow their growth plan, they need to understand both the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’.
Individual Development Plans
Individual development plans are a tool for employee growth that allows employees to identify areas they want to improve or enhance within their job. These goals are often linked to company-wide targets, which is a win-win situation for all. Employees can feel like their development is important to the organization and are able to gain valuable experience in new roles that may ultimately lead to promotions and/or raises.
Managers and employees will work together to develop an IDP. They will review an employee’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. They will compare them to the desired job and set specific objectives to close the gap. This is typically a collaborative process and is part of, but complementary to, a formal performance review.
A development plan is a great tool to increase employee engagement and retention. When employees can see a direct connection between their development and career path, they are more likely to stay with the company.
A manager, for example, might want to improve their leadership skills or take on more management duties to prepare themselves for future advancement opportunities. This could be achieved by setting goals, such as attending leadership workshops or mentoring junior members of the team.
Finding the right experts to train certain skills is a challenge when developing effective employee training programs. Employees can become frustrated if they are not getting the instruction they need. If an employee wishes to learn how best to manage their sales team, it is essential that they receive instructions from someone with previous experience in sales management.
Team Development
It is important to develop teams because it helps them work together more effectively. It involves helping teammates to learn how communicate with each, understand their strengths and weaknesses and come up with solutions that will benefit everyone.
Tools for team development can include workshops, group discussion, 1on1 meetings and goal tracking. Communication workshops can be especially helpful for newer teams that are still learning how to work together. Team leaders can use workflows such as Fellow’s Objectives during these sessions to track, define and discuss goals.
Training can be done through formal classroom settings, eLearning courses, or even mentorship programs. When choosing training methods for employees, HR professionals should consider their learning styles. Not all learners learn best in the same environment.
During the learning process, it’s also important to focus on soft skills. Team members with stronger interpersonal relationships are more likely to be open to new ideas and new ways of thinking.
It is difficult to predict the exact moment that a group will reach its goal. Some teams reach a point in which they are working well together, and moving towards their goals. Others will lose members and start to become dysfunctional. The point of a team is to accomplish goals and move on, and an effective way to do that is with consistent communication and support from the leader. By implementing team development tools, managers can ensure that their teams are functioning at maximum productivity and efficiency.