7 ways to boost employee development at your company

Today, every company uses different HR strategies to boost its growth and invest into its employees. The reason is because businesses understand very well that a developed workforce is the only way to survive in today’s competitive market. In fact, numerous studies show that improving learning and development initiatives is one of the main focuses for HR executives nowadays. To help out HR managers, we’ll share a few tips on how to boost employee development in the organization.

Employee development begins from the moment a person joins your company. Hence, you have to offer them basic training about all the tools and technologies your company uses on the first day.

For example, if your organization uses a CRM solution to store customer data, you should show your employees how to use the software. You can prepare a document containing information related to all company’s tools or go for one of the knowledge-sharing practices to share this information with the new hires.

This way, managers won’t have to provide one-on-one training to each new employee. Also, employees may not always get the opportunity to ask questions or clarify all the details with managers. Thus, creating a thorough onboard training program will save lots of time.

Managers and coaches share several things. They both analyze their junior’s performance, understand what drains them and what motivates them. Based on the analysis, they provide the right guidance to their employees.

With that in mind, companies can train their managers to be leaders as well as mentors for the employees. Managers can have regular conversations with employees and make efforts to understand their psychological problems. Moreover, managers can connect with employees at a deeper level and motivate them to constantly learn new things.

Along with the employee’s skill development, organizations should also focus on their personal development. Personal training helps employees grow on different levels, such as maintaining mental wellness, effective communication, and managing their emotions. Soft skills development is essential and provides a build block to boost productivity and improve employee retention rates in the organization. All in all, develop your employee’s both personal and professional skills to gain higher productivity and retention.

There’s no purpose in putting efforts into employee development when you don’t have any proof that your efforts are actually working. Therefore, you should understand what skills your employees need and provide training in them.

Also, you should set clear goals around the skills and track those goals to ensure your development strategies are working. If your goals aren’t met, you should adjust your strategies accordingly.

If you push your employees to learn new skills, they may consider it as a forceful action and won’t make desired efforts to grow their skills. In contrast, if you self-aware your employees about the benefits of learning new skill sets, they will more willingly participate in the company’s development program.

Thus, you should provide your employees with insight into how skill development will open doors for many new opportunities for them. Also, offer them some kind of incentive for growing their skills like promotion or bonus.

Companies need to understand that organizing a workshop once in a while won’t help their employees learn new skills in the long run. Instead, they have to create a constant learning environment where employees can learn anytime.

For example, you can provide special allowance to your employees which they can use to improve their skills. This way, employees can enroll in different courses to enhance their skills.

Here you also have to provide sufficient time to your employees so they can focus on learning. For instance, give your employees an extra day off, so they join a class or allow them to leave work a few hours early.

Employees can learn a lot from one another, especially in remote workplaces, where diverse employees are working in a team. This gives employees a great opportunity to learn new skills from their fellow teammates.

For this, you have to bridge the gap between different departments and allow employees to collaborate together. For example, you can host inter-departmental discussions and seminars so employees can share their knowledge with one another.

Additionally, you can pair two different departments’ employees in a team so they can pass on their knowledge. For example, if marketers work with salespeople, they can better understand customers’ pain points and design personalized marketing campaigns.