Employee development is beneficial for company’s success as well as for individual employee’s career.Developing employeesis astrategic way to grow organization,improve productivity and decrease employee turnover. Many organizations fail to provide employees’ development, and in theendit costs them their reputation, ruins their employer brand and leads to stagnation in business success.
There are multiple benefits of investing in employee development, but it is important to know whatare the waysto encourage and support it. Also, manager’s role in employee development is crucial, so keep on reading to find out alltheways to drive continuous employee growth.
📚 Before we start,take a lookatthesequestionsemployees use to evaluate their employers.
Employee Growth and Development Defined
Employee development is a process of investing in improving, refining and encouragingof employees’ existing skills, and supporting development of the new ones. Employee development allows employees toexpand their knowledge and skill set, which equips them to carry out more complex work.
In other words,employee development allows employees to take on higher-ranking roles and advance in their careers.At the same time,employee developmentbenefits organizations, who aremoldingtheir employees’ skillset to match their mission and business goals.
How to Encourage and Support Employee Development
Supporting employees’ development is something every organization should do as it has many benefits for the company. However, many employers fail to encourage employee growth and do notprovide resources to do so. Still,68% of employees say training and development are company’s most important policies.
1. Offer training from the start
It is best to let your employees know that their growth is a priority during onboarding. By offering professional training from the get-go, you arebuilding your employees’ awareness of possibilities for their growth.It also shows your organization’s commitment and interest in developing its own employees’ skills.
2. Accentuate soft skills
According to LinkedIn,91% of talent professionals agree that soft skills are very important to the futureof recruiting and HR.In other words,workplaces are now increasingly recognizing teamwork, leadership, collaboration and time management as desirable skills among their employees.
Indeed, soft skills are harder to adopt, but the team of highly functional employees withdeveloped soft skillsguarantees productive workplace with great results. Therefore, try organizing trainings and workshops to develop soft skillsamong your employees. It will also benefit your company culture.
3. Create individual development plans
According to research,74% of employees do not believe they are reaching their full potential.This is worrying, but also leaves a lot of space for improvement. Try approaching all your employees individually and create development plans according to their own preferences and your company’s goals.
4. Allow for personal development
Your employees’ development does not have to be directly connected to their career or line of business.Employee development must be holistic and allow forgrowing and learning skills that are beneficial for employees on a personal level.
In fact,facilitating employee wellbeingcan be seen asa method of personal employee development. Enabling your employees to grow intellectually, balance their emotions or get in better physical shapeindirectlybenefits their work performance.
📚A good time to create individual employee development plans is during employee reviews.Find out what are thebest employee evaluation practicesmanagers should follow.
5. Offer continuous employee feedback
Employeefeedbackisone of the most important tools at your disposal for enabling employee growth.When employeesget comments on their performance, they know what they are doing well and in which areas to improve. This is crucial for their development, as it makes them aware ofskillsthey could develop in order to get ahead.
6. Recognize your employees’ work
Similar tofeedback, youremployees’ growth depends on encouragement of skills, actions and behavior that are positiveand in line with your company’s vision.This is whyemployee recognition is essential foremployee development. It makes your employees feel appreciated and secure, also allowing for self-confidence to improve.
📚GetourEmployee Recognition Playbookto learn how to build an effective employee recognition program in your company.
7. Allow for easier top-down and peer-to-peer collaboration
Research tells us that over70% of learning on the job occurs informally.It is important that your employeesseize the opportunity to learn from their coworkers as well as from their superiors.Therefore, you should find ways to facilitate communication and collaboration across departments and across your organizational hierarchy. In other words, you shouldmake your employees feel comfortable reaching out to their superiors or peers asking for help, advice or collaboration.
8. Offer resources
If you do not speak and directly offer the resources for employee development, your employees will rarely come up to you and ask for them.Let your employees know that it is not onlyallowed but also encouraged by the company to take professional training and develop new skills.
More specifically, do the following:
a. Inform your employees of internal learning resources (online trainings, eBooks and more) during onboarding, and remind them to use these resources once in a while.
b. Make sure your employees know that there is a budget for their professional training, and that company will sponsor the conferences, workshops and other education that they ask for.
c. Send a newsletter to your employees with a list of workshops, conferences or other events they might benefit from. In other words, proactively offer ways to develop.
d. Organize workshops internally. Enable your employees to learn from each other and take on the coaching role onoccasions.
7Benefits of Investing in Employee Development
The best marker of how beneficial it is to invest in employee development is the fact thatcompanies areputting more and more resources into it.In 2016, spend on corporate training was over $70billionin the US, followed by the more than$90 billion spent in 2017.
So, what are the exact benefits of investing in employee development?
1. Remaining competitive
Companies are competing for market share which translates to business profits.According to research,investing in training leads to up to24% higher profit margins.Furthermore, companies will remain competitive among the candidates that will eventually become their employees.
2. Forestall skill shortage
75% of HR professionalswho have recruiting difficulties say there is a shortage of skills in candidates for job openings.By investing in your own employees’ development, youare able todeal with the skill shortage by training your own workforce to match the future company needs. It is a great way tosave money while offering your employees to acquire skillset that is competitive on the market.
3. Improving cross-departmental collaboration
By investing in employee development, you will expand your employees’ horizons and facilitate adoption of new skills. If your employees learn how to use their soft skills, they willimprove cross-departmental collaboration, making the end-product high quality.After all, when people of different backgrounds and ways of thinking collaborate, innovation and creativity peak.
4. Boosting employee motivation and morale
Employee motivation is vital for your employees’ work productivity.When you invest in your employee development, your employees know what they can expect if they work hard: theywill acquire new skills and be more competitive on the market, which leads to the career advancement, more meaningful and responsible work, etc.
The awareness of company’s interest in employee development is also a strong employee morale booster.
5. Reducing employee turnover
Any HR Professional knows how costly employee turnover is, and how hard it is to retain employees if company does not invest in them. After all, the market for employees with high quality skills is very competitive these days.
📚It is useful to note thatfacilitating employee development is one of the best strategies for reducing employee turnover.In fact,40% of employees with poor training will leave the companywithin the first year, while whopping93% of employees would stay at a company longerif it invested in their careers.
6. Increasing employee productivity
Similar tothe previous point, your employees’ productivity will be higher if they know that the company is willing to facilitate their growth. Younger employees today especially value opportunities fordevelopment, citing this as one of themain traits of attractive employers.
In other words,your employees will work harder if they know their work is not in vain and will be rewarded with opportunity to learn and advanceprofessionally.
7. Improving employer brand
Although companies invest in employee development first and foremost do improve their business results and improve employee retention, a positive consequence of taking care of employee growth turn out to be great employer branding. Therefore,interview your employees about their career path within the company for your organization’s blog and promote more success stories internally and externally.
The Manager’s Role in Employee Growth and Development
Although the planning for employee development is a cross-departmental effort, managers are the ones in direct contact with your employees every day.Managersset the example and someone to look up to for your employees.Furthermore,managers should be in charge for detecting their employees’ potential and proposing in which direction to develop them.
📚 Before you continue, learn aboutdifferent management stylesyour managers can apply in your organization.
Help your managers become better leaders
It is worrying that58% of managers say they did not receive any management training. Without learning how to be good leaders to their teams, your managers will fail inenabling growth to their subordinates. Therefore,the first step in facilitating your employees’ development is training your managers into enabling that same development.
Listen to employees
Your managers need to learn not only how to lead, but also how to listen. In order to manage successful teams, managers shouldcheck their employees’ pulseand be aware of their feelings and grievances. By doing that, managers will successfully detect problems.
More importantly, by closely collaborating and listening to their employees, managerswill realize their employees’ potential and propose most useful training or workshops.
📚 Ensure your managers have the right tools to facilitate your employees’ growth.SurveyRockscan help your managers listen to their teams by sending them customized surveys as work happens.