Growth is seen to be an integral part of any human wellbeing, something that would satisfy our personal experience. To be able to experience fulfillment, some of us crave newer challenges and that is why we push our boundaries to be able to accomplish our goals. We climb mountains and bring heaven and earth together to be able to experience a sense of achievement. And we need this to be able to progress in life be it personal or career-oriented.
As an employee of any organization, we look for healthy work environments where we continuously look to expose ourselves to newer experiences. These experiences help us advance our career growth and should also be best aligned to the company’s growth. A healthy mindset should be the core of any growing organization. This is why employee development is crucial for the long-term success of any business.
There are countless ways that can help lead any company to success. You can pull levers on any of the departments in your company but prioritizing them may have a better impact. It’s no surprise why employee development seems to be at the bottom of the list for any organization and then we wonder why our company is not doing too well.
Leaders are often seen to be constrained with time and are most inclined towards short to medium growth. This is most commonly seen in startups. As a result, most employees can see the end of the runway in no time at all. Can you really think such organizations can last for long? This is why we must view employee development to be an integral part of the company’s growth. Your people are the building block of your organization. They would feel great if they know that their managers care for them and are committed to their professional growth. Many would desire support, coaching as well as guidance to excel.
Employee development is usually a long-term initiative and often leads to short-term benefits for instance loyalty and enhanced performance. Let’s look at five ways that can help align employee development with your company’s goals:
1) Training and Development
It’s best to get the obvious stuff out of the way! Formal employee training may be a mandate if the role is critical. This also ensures competency and above all excellence. As an ideal practice, it is always best to create a knowledge base of useful information and best practices and then to pass on this information to new hires. This could be a time-consuming exercise but will surely pay off in the long run.
For most roles, a training manual serves as a great way to get to know the organization and its goals better. Such manuals can offer better insights into the roles and existing skillsets required to fulfill the needs of the organization. At first glance, you may have to teach new hires and acclimate them to the work culture. If the culture is healthy and if employees believe in your key offerings, then most likely new candidates will love to learn more and will adapt themselves to the work culture in no time at all.
As time flies, you can add or modify the knowledge database and enhance its abilities with business books and e-learning topics. The employees can remain up-to-date with the marketplace with the latest trends and newer practices.
2) Coaching and Mentoring
Recent studies reveal that since managers themselves are too overburdened with their day-to-day office work so they can barely find any time for knowledge transfer, skill enhancements, and offer insights to new hires. Companies need to support and allow managers to take out time to be able to perform additional duties at work.
Coaching may seem to be challenging at first particularly for those managers who have little or no prior experience. However, today employees demand more than just telling them what their day-to-day activities are. To ensure that the coaching experience is simple yet effective, you may want to start by asking simple questions like:
What kind of challenges are you facing in your work and how can I help?
What action would you like to take to improve your overall performance?
What kind of training would you require to help you in your current role?
3) Cross-Departmental Training
It is not a bad idea to consider your business as an ecosystem where there is harmonious balance and you are constantly making corrections. Management must offer guidance at all steps to enhance the overall health of the company. You can encourage cross-departmental training so that departments do not work in silos but rather respect and understand the working of different units. Employees can then clearly see the kind of impact they can collectively make to ensure business goals are met.
4) Soft-skills training
It is rather unfortunate that soft skills have lost their true meaning and significance in the corporate world. Management is laying less emphasis on soft skills whereas research reveals that they can play an imperative role in aligning personal development with company goals. Self-regulation, motivation, social skills, awareness, and soft skills play a pivotal role in effective leadership as well as execution at all levels.
You should invite an expert to teach your teams on how to interpret body language or best practice effective communication. This may not seem to be so important but it is an important medium that can help improve cohesiveness among employees.
5) Personal development
The people working in your organization do not just exist to serve you in their physical professional capacity. They are humans and experience emotional and intellectual changes. If you want to evolve them both personally and professionally and ensure you can retain a quality workforce, then personality development should prove to be a great idea.
Ask simple and direct questions like how do you feel at work? Do you see yourself struggling in any area? How can I help? A supportive manager is usually skilled at listening and noting down any shortcomings.
You can also foster healthy relationships by providing education sessions, offering rewards for performances, and/or take your teams out for parties or get-togethers. Also, keep track of personal medical health and offer health insurance or access to gyms. Stock up healthy food items at work and offer them at a reduced price to all employees. You should be able to gradually see a positive change in the working environment, which can help you both in the short and long run.
Gaurav Sabharwal
CEO of JOP
Gaurav is the CEO of JOP (Joy of Performing), an OKR and high-performance enabling platform. With almost two decades of experience in building businesses, he knows what it takes to enable high performance within a team and engage them in the business. He supports organizations globally by becoming their growth partner and helping them build high-performing teams by tackling issues like lack of focus, unclear goals, unaligned teams, lack of funding, no continuous improvement framework, etc. He is a Certified OKR Coach and loves to share helpful resources and address common organizational challenges to help drive team performance. Read More