Employee development is an on-going process that enables employees to improve their skills and prepares for future leadership positions. It improves job satisfaction, bolsters retention and helps companies keep competitive in the talent market.
Prioritize two way feedback to ensure you’re providing the best learning opportunities. Choose a digital empowerment solution with built-in survey distribution, real-time analysis and easy to use reporting and dashboards.
Mentoring
Mentoring programs pair senior employees with junior ones in a one-to-one relationship to help the mentee gain experience, build their professional network and explore career options. This can be part of a new hire onboarding process or used as a way to support continuing employee development. It is essential that both parties find value in the interaction. It is therefore helpful to have a team or individual oversee the mentoring program. They can check in with participants regularly and ensure a good match.
Mentoring has many benefits for both employees and mentees, but it is most important that it helps them develop their careers. A study found mentees with mentors had a six-fold higher chance of reaching the leadership ranks as compared to those without a mentoring arrangement. Mentoring has also been proven to be an effective tool for promoting workplace diversity. The practice can help companies develop a talent pool of employees who have been overlooked because of their background or culture and provide them with a platform to express themselves and build their leadership skills.
Mentoring also helps employees develop soft skills, which are crucial for success at any job or in any industry. Communication, public speaking and interpersonal skills are among them. Many organizations focus on technical skills and may overlook the need to hone these important soft skills, which can be learned through mentoring.
Mentors are available in many ways, including through internal programs or from outside of the company. These individuals can be former bosses, teachers, coworkers from another department, or even someone that they met through an intern program. However, it is important to consider the needs of the organization and what the goals are for the mentoring program before finding a match.
Many mentoring programs within the business continuity and resilient industry are organized around certain skill sets such as project management or business resilience. This ensures that the mentee receives a high-quality training from a mentor who is qualified. It can also be used to connect the mentee to others in the field. This will expand their professional network, and give them a sense purpose.
Training
Training is the formal process of relaying knowledge and skills to employees to help them perform better in their current roles or prepare for new ones. It includes both job functions, like a training course in a new program, and soft-skills, such a leadership development or communication courses. Training can also include activities such as career progression workshops, job interviews and performance appraisals.
Employee training is generally done on the job, with managers or other experienced employees leading the activity in context of the real work environment. Some training takes place off-site, for example, in a classroom or workshop. As part of their job, employees may be required to complete formal education. For example, they might have to attend safety or compliance training. Alternatively, companies might offer training to improve the overall quality of the company’s products or services.
Some training takes place as part of a mentoring program, in which an experienced manager or employee helps another develop. This is often referred to “coaching”. The coach can assist an employee in gaining new skills, improving performance and enhancing the quality of their career.
The development of soft skills can also be a part of employee training, such as workshops on interpersonal and communication skills, or a series of one-on-one meetings with an experienced mentor. This type is less formal and individualized than group-based training, but it can still be effective at helping employees develop.
The development of employee competencies is a crucial component to the success of an organization. It is also a vital part of employee lifecycle. Organizations must continually upgrade their employees’ skills to keep pace with technology, meet customer needs and stay competitive in the marketplace. Employees who feel that their employers are committed to their professional development are more likely to be engaged in the workplace.
It is important to align employee development and strategic business needs such as workforce planning or successor management. It’s also necessary to involve managers in employee development, so that they understand how this program fits into a management process or an existing retention plan.
Projects/Tasks
To keep your team motivated, you should assign tasks that are both challenging as well as appropriate for their level of expertise. By using project management software and following guidelines for task assignment, you can easily delegate tasks to your team that will help them grow. Correctly delegating tasks can also improve employee engagement, increase workplace productivity, and allow employees to develop new skills.
To ensure that the tasks are completed in time, they should first be broken down by milestones and timelines. By breaking down the tasks, employees can better understand how long each task will take and avoid overworking. Milestones allow managers and staff to evaluate whether the project is on schedule to be completed by its deadline.
Idealy, each task should represent between 1% and 5% of the total project length. If your project will take 100 days to complete, then each task should last between one and ten days. Depending on how complex each task is, it may be necessary for you to break larger tasks down into smaller ones. It is important to understand the dependencies among tasks so that the correct person can work on them at the appropriate time.
When creating a schedule for a project, it’s important to also consider the strategic needs of your business. It may be useful to have your team members expand their skill set to prepare them for future challenges.
Support
Employee development is an excellent way for employees learn new skills and improve on those they already have. It helps them to stay on top of technological advances, trends in the industry, and company practices. This increases their effectiveness at the workplace and makes the organisation more competitive. However, employee development can only be effective if it is a company-wide effort. In addition, companies who support employee development find that their employees are more loyal. This reduces turnover costs and increases profitability.
To begin an employee development program, it is important to assess the skills and experiences of the employees and what the company needs. Then, managers will be able to identify the opportunities that are aligned with employees’ aspirations for their careers and the company goals. Once the plan has been implemented, it’s important to monitor progress with one-on-one interviews and performance reviews. Finally, companies must align employee training with strategic business requirements, such as the retirement of older workers, or a desire to increase innovation and flexibility.
A robust learning management system is another important component of an employee development programme. It allows HR and management to easily track individual progress, and communicate with one another. This ensures that programs are scalable across the entire company and easy for employees to access. A platform such as Primetric can provide a central location to record and share the employee development journey with everyone in the company. The system allows you to create individualized development plans and manage project allocations. This allows employees to be more engaged and connected to their managers, which is an important factor in job satisfaction.