The best way to nurture and retain talent is to provide them with personal development opportunities. What is one tip for leaders to regularly support employee personal development?
To help you best support the personal development of your employees, we asked HR managers and business leaders this question for their best insights. From encouraging job shadowing across the company to giving employees time to work on personal projects, there are several great ideas for company leaders to make the personal development of their employees a regular part of the company culture.
Here are 12 ways these leaders regularly support their employees’ personal development:
- Encourage Job Shadowing Across the Company
- Invite Input From Employees About Their Development Goals
- Watch Employee Skills to Anticipate Advancement Needs
- Adopt a Formal Organizational Policy
- Help Employees Keep Up With New Technology and Tools
- Offer Free Access to Massive Open Online Courses
- Know Your Employees and Help Them Reach Their Potential
- Create a Safe Environment for Discussions About Mental Health
- Schedule Regular Employee Sentiment Interviews
- Provide Robust Mentorship Programs From the Start
- Cultivate a Culture of Communication
- Give Employees Time to Work on Personal Projects
Encourage Job Shadowing Across the Company
Employers should make job shadowing a prerequisite in every role. It should feature in work schedules, and its outcomes measured and assessed to determine effectiveness. If possible, every single employee should get the opportunity of shadowing someone in another department at least once or twice a year. Job shadowing is a great way for employees to learn new skills and understand how different functions contribute to the success of the business. This employee development technique can also foster innovation and heightened collaboration within the company.
Joe Flanagan, 90s Fashion World
Invite Input From Employees About Their Development Goals
Ask your talent what sort of development they think they’d benefit from. Rather than trying to guess what they want, go right to the source. Your employees might surprise you with some out-of-the-box ideas you wouldn’t have thought of; or, they may just have some interests you didn’t know about. For instance, maybe one of your copywriters wants to learn graphic design; you can help facilitate that and make them a double threat in the marketing department. You’ll be surprised at what might develop if you get your talent involved in the process.
Chris Vaughn, Emjay
Watch Employee Skills to Anticipate Advancement Needs
To provide your team with personal development opportunities, as part of the management team, it’s crucial to keep an eye on new skill sets and the potential for advancement. If you begin to see that an employee could be managing more responsibilities, it’s important to take notice and explore available opportunities. Otherwise, your team will become disengaged, and they may just jump ship when the competition comes calling.
Shaun Price, MitoQ
Adopt a Formal Organizational Policy
While providing employees with personal development opportunities is a great way to introduce personal and thus organizational growth, the best way to commit to it is to create and adopt a policy to this effect. In formally initiating a policy change, the resolve to initiate change goes beyond just the leadership team and has personnel from all other levels of the organization working towards this new goal. Since personal development initiatives require the participation of leaders, managers, as well as employees, a policy change is the most productive way to move forward.
Riley Beam, Douglas R. Beam, P.A.
Help Employees Keep Up With New Technology and Tools
Personal development is not only about furthering education and getting more certifications, it is also about keeping up with the latest technology and tools. As new technologies emerge, it is important for leaders to equip employees with these innovations so they can stay up-to-date and remain competitive in their field. This could involve sending employees to conferences or workshops, or providing them with access to online resources. Alternatively, leaders could create an internal “training budget” that employees can use to purchase books, courses or other development materials.
Demi Yilmaz, Colonist.io
Offer Free Access to Massive Open Online Courses
A cornerstone of personal development is continuous upskilling and reskilling. No matter what your profession is or what position you hold, just about everybody can benefit from continuous improvement. And the best way to do that today is through online classes. So one thing we do for our employees is to offer them totally free access to massive open online courses (MOOCs). We have an enterprise-level account with Coursera, where employees can take whatever classes they want. Whether it’s a class on doodling or advanced Excel skills, they are free to grow their skill set however they see fit. In addition, we give each employee 4 hours per month of dedicated MOOC time, completely paid. They can do this at home or at work, and whenever they want. But we strongly encourage them to constantly improve and develop through online classes.
John Ross, Test Prep Insight
Know Your Employees and Help Them Reach Their Potential
Have meetings with your employees to discuss their growth opportunities and set them up with the training needed to reach those goals. Great employees always seek to learn and improve their skills. When a self-motivated employee is trained non-stop and provided with constant learning opportunities they feel their career growth is important to the company they work for. Employees stay when they can clearly see the company and management persistently encouraging them and helping them to reach their full potential so they feel valued. Being able to see a growth path and future opportunities to develop their career within the company is a motivating factor for them to stay at the same organization.
Liz Hogan, Find My Profession
Create a Safe Environment for Discussions About Mental Health
Open spaces for discussions and presentations about mental health. People tend to feel like they are alone when they struggle with things like burnout, and some are too introverted to ask for help from coworkers or superiors. Create a safe environment where the intention to help goes beyond the surface level. Bring professionals to talk and present on current topics, this will give employees some of the emotional and psychological tools they need to cope with the day-to-day and even motivate them to search for help or go to therapy if they feel like they need it.
Ryan Warner, 1AND1 Life
Schedule Regular Employee Sentiment Interviews
Employers should collect and track employee sentiment regularly via surveys and one-on-one interviews. Tracking sentiments facilitates managers to keep up with employees’ needs, changes, and desires as they grow in a role.
Our teams appreciate being checked on regularly for their own feedback as well. Each touchpoint is an opportunity for staff and managers to get to know each other better and stay abreast of available growth opportunities. When a position opens up, for example, we encourage our teams to apply before posting the job listing online. It benefits both employers and employees for talent to cultivate their professional skill set and experiences, so make every opportunity available to teams to create a solid business foundation.
Jason Panzer, Hexclad
Provide Robust Mentorship Programs From the Start
Provide mentorship programs from the beginning that give structure and a clear path forward. So much of growing in business comes down to knowing the right questions to ask, and there is no faster way in achieving success than modeling someone else who has done it before you. Encourage your employees to challenge themselves and ask difficult questions. When you have mentorship in place, they will feel more confident to take the next necessary steps.
Michael Burghoffer, PicoSolutions
Cultivate a Culture of Communication
The best way to support employee personal development is to cultivate a culture of communication. Ask your employees what their personal development aspirations are, and truly listen to their responses. Encourage constructive conversation and feedback, which facilitates ideas to flow, encouraging inspiration and innovation. Active listening will allow you to identify employees’ needs and guide your approach to supporting their development. It will also highlight any barriers or obstacles they may be facing and enable you to work towards solutions.
Each employee is different, with their own unique needs, goals, and attributes. Appreciating and connecting with them on a personal level will help you to tailor your support accordingly. Recognizing someone as an individual helps them feel seen, valued, and respected, enhancing their employment experience, and motivating them to work on their development from a place of positivity.
Mario Cacciottolo, SBO
Give Employees Time to Work on Personal Projects
My favorite method of cultivating a personal growth culture is Google’s method. Google is known for giving employees time to work on personal projects they are passionate about. I use the same in my business coupled with a mentorship system where less experienced employees can receive feedback and work with senior leaders who see potential in their projects.
The personal project program brings innovation into the business much more naturally, gives employees a sense of achievement, and fosters the growth of everyone involved. We often get our most productive work from these weekly 2 hours in which employees work on their projects and get advice and suggestions from mentors. Since the implementation of this program, we’ve also seen employees become more invested in the long-term well-being of the business as they feel valued by the organization.
It is worth noting that if you are an employee of a company you do not feel is supporting you, you can do plenty of things to address your problems. From contacting HR to hiring an workers compensation lawyer, there are plenty of ways to protect your rights.
Brian Campbell, Waterfilterguru