What is one way you grow and develop your employees?
To help employers create development strategies for employee growth, we asked CEOs and business leaders this question for their best insights. From offering mentorships to providing diverse experiences, there are several ways that you can support your team’s careers for years to come at your organization.
Here are 10 employee development strategies to nurture employee growth:
- Focus on Soft Skills
- Offer Mentorships
- Highlight Emotional Intelligence
- Incorporate Personal and Professional Goals
- Pay for Their Next Workshop
- Recognize Achievements
- Instill an L&D Culture
- Let Employees Teach the Team
- Encourage Work-Life Balance
- Provide Diverse Experiences
Focus on Soft Skills
The continued growth and development of employees are crucial to the success of any business. To encourage this, push for the continued development of soft skills. These aren’t only skills that are good in the workplace; they’re also good skills for personal growth and development. Being able to listen, not just to respond but to understand, and being able to communicate effectively are important skills for life as well. These aren’t skills that you learn just once either 一 each person you interact with will require different ways to communicate and collaborate as well.
Randall Smalley, Cruise America
Offer Mentorships
If you want your employees to stay motivated and develop their skills, you need to challenge them and provide development opportunities. My advice is to offer your staff a mentorship program that can support them during different career stages. It is good to start with a framework that defines the program’s goals and tracks cooperation between a mentor and a mentee. An effective mentorship program will help your employees stay focused on their career goals, look for new growth opportunities, and encourage knowledge sharing within your organization.
Dorota Lysienia, LiveCareer
Highlight Emotional Intelligence
We develop passionate educators who provide a nurturing atmosphere for our students to learn and grow. At Cadence Education schools, we prioritize social-emotional development through our Kind Child curriculum. Kind Child teaches our students to care for their emotional well-being and ties into our overall school and community mission. Our teachers are the program’s foundation and receive training and resources so they can bring awareness to their own emotions and intentionality to their teaching practice.
Jeanne Kolpek, Cadence Education
Incorporate Personal and Professional Goals
One way to develop and nurture employee growth is to incorporate personal goals right alongside professional goals. When you emphasize personal development, you tend to get growth in more areas than one. This also demonstrates care and support beyond the job title and role objectives. Winning and achieving your goals is a habit. When you can win in all areas of life, everyone benefits, including your customers.
Jenn Christie, Markitors
Pay for Their Next Workshop
We firmly believe in career development, but talk is cheap, and actions always speak louder than words. With that in mind, we have a generous budget for every employee to tap into in order for them to skill up and continue expanding and refreshing their knowledge base. As long as they provide a short explanation of how the class/seminar/workshop is relevant to their career path, we’re more than happy to refund the costs. The above is purely optional, of course. However, we consistently remind and encourage all employees to take advantage of this resource.
Anna Berkolec, ResumeLab
Recognize Achievements
Recognition is our way of growing and developing our employees. We not only recognize them for the work they do, but we also recognize them for every little step they take forward in any goal. For example, if our workers take a little step to improve their overall well-being, we appreciate and recognize them. When they receive such massive appreciation and recognition, our workers feel motivated to grow. They keep moving towards new endeavors, and that makes us feel glad. Moreover, we also try to offer the best support that we can to help our employees grow and develop.
Jessica Robinson, The Speaking Polymath
Instill an L&D Culture
One way we grow and develop our lawyers is through a culture of learning and development (L&D). As a lawyer, you’re constantly required to learn and keep up with certain legislative changes if you want to stay at the top. And as a leader of a law firm, I’m required to put plans in place to equip our lawyers with the necessary information and tools to help them stay informed. We, therefore, conduct L&D programs semi-regularly. We send out information on different legal topics, encourage our lawyers to do their own research, and communicate with one another regarding information that might be helpful to them and others. By building this culture, we ensure our lawyers are always learning and improving at what they do, ultimately improving our ability to get clients the best possible results.
Seth Price, Price Benowitz LLP
Let Employees Teach the Team
One of the best ways to learn is to teach others. In my team, each month, I invite one of the members to teach the team something new. To teach others, you must understand a topic deeply. In our case, we do a lot of SEO and writing. There are many subtopics, so when you do tons of research, you become an expert at it. You help not only that one team member who is teaching, but you and the rest of your team will learn something from their presentation.
Paw Vej, Financer.com
Encourage Work-Life Balance
I grow and develop our employees by helping them avoid workplace burnout. It’s important to encourage them to feel comfortable taking breaks. Employers need to set that example as well. If your most driven employees don’t see you taking breaks, they won’t feel comfortable taking them either. When employees take breaks, it makes them more productive and able to focus on their work. Many also appreciate employers who encourage work-life balance.
Shaun Price, MitoQ
Provide Diverse Experiences
Each quarter, I recommend giving employees work in a separate vertical of the company. Especially for young employees who have just graduated college, this is an excellent way for them to gain an even greater understanding of their passions. As an example, if there is a retail buyer on my team, I would assign them to a project with the accounting team for Q1, the creative team for Q2, the supply chain team for Q3, and the editorial team for Q4. This allows for maximum exposure of the company while also increasing opportunities for their professional careers.
Dan Potter, CRAFTD
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