5 Ways To Improve Employee Development At Your Company

 

1) Professional Training

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way.

Depending on the role, formal employee training may be required to ensure competency and even excellence. Create a knowledge-base of critical information and best practices to pass on to new hires as you grow your team. This will be time-consuming at first, but will pay off in the long run.

2) Coaching & Mentoring

According to this piece in Harvard Business Review, managers today are overburdened and “no longer pass-on knowledge, skills, and insights through coaching and mentoring. Organizations need to support and incentivize managers to perform this work.”

3) Cross-Departmental Training

I like to think of my business as an ecosystem. In nature, all of the different species of plants and animals are interdependent. They ultimately create a harmonious balance in the system by constantly making corrections. For example, a shortage of vegetation during drought creates competition in prey species. This in-turn creates greater competition among predators and their numbers decline as well. A new balance is formed where the healthiest individuals of every species can thrive.

4) Develop “Soft-skills”

It’s unfortunate that these vital skills have been de-emphasized in corporate environments. Even the name “soft skills” makes them seem relatively unnecessary. Dan Goleman’s framework of emotional intelligence at work is just as important as the intellectual know-how required to perform a specific task. Self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill all play a vital role in effective leadership and execution at all levels of the organization.

SOURCE:15five.com