You have qualified and hardworking employee working for your company. But does that make them resilient, driven and – above everything – as motivated to succeed as you are?
You silently heard a ‘NO’ in your head. Didn’t you?
So how do you keep your employees engaged, motivated and more productive, when they’re involved in the daily drudgery of making things happen?
The answer is ‘Employee Development’ through getting your team excited to learn new skills.
Be it essential learning, to get better at a job or learning & skill-building to upgrade in the career path, (believe it or not) Development is all about learning!
To simplify we suggest you to take your employees through the course of two types of learning:
- Directed Learning and
- Self-directed Learning
DIRECTED LEARNING
Fundamental Learning:
- The most basic way of learning is through making your employees attend seminars, conferences, technical sessions etc. It is a part of necessary employee development that puts employees on the course they need to travel in their career. Continually brushing up your employees’ knowledge helps keep your team sharp, along with showing them you’re serious about developing their careers.
- Encourage your employees to take up relevant Courses and Certifications to make them more productive.
SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING
Let the Intrapreneurship thrive within your organization:
- Assigning critical roles to your employees. Give them a leadership role in some assignments to drive some self-directed learning for your employees. Because the best experiences are gained by doing things in the real world.
- Another developmental approach is to give your employees the opportunity to experience different roles. (i.e. Encouraging the team members to consider other roles in the organization and even actively put them forward for such opportunities)
Conducive working environment:
- Create a ‘Collaborative’ and not a ‘Competitive’ working environment in your organization, wherein the employees are willing to mentor other team members whenever required. For that pick a day of the week for thought sharing, in which the employees can share their views and experiences through Group Discussion and Knowledge Sharing Session. This will make the employees connected to the organization and the team.
- Set aside time to discuss your team members’ strengths & weaknesses and where they might have gaps in their learning. Take suggestions for potential plugs to skill gaps in the team. The objective of doing this exercise is to drive employee engagement by linking their interest and aspirations with learning & development.
Try any of these learning, development and advancement opportunities for your employees and let us know what learning ways have you found effective in engaging your employees?
‘Remember you’re never too old or experienced to learn something new!’
