Finding the right person for the job when you are hiring for a role in your business can be a difficult task. However, it can be even more challenging to try and keep hold of good staff by nurturing their skills and helping them develop. Many businesses make the mistake of thinking that the best employees don’t need ongoing attention and investment once they have been hired, but instead it is essential that you help your employees to develop and reach their full potential. Failure to do this means you aren’t utilizing your employee’s abilities and this may result in them leaving your business to go work somewhere else.

There are many different advantages when it comes to helping your employees develop, and it can be as equally beneficial to you and your company as it is to the individual. Often companies don’t see employee development as an area that requires much investment, but you may find that by dedicating resources to your employee’s development, it can lead to an increase in productivity, business growth, and establishing a loyal workforce. To help you make the most of your staff, here are seven ways that you can help your employees develop.

Start with Yourself

If you want your employees to develop, then it is important that you lead by example and show your workforce that nobody is perfect and we all need to consider our own personal development, even you! Make sure that you are honest with your staff and even share with them your experiences in your own development.

Don’t Be Afraid to Invest

It is important that you take employee development seriously and budget for development resources, such as training, on a regular basis. While it is normal for you to try and cut costs wherever possible if you are a business owner, it is important that you set aside the money required and make it available for employee development. Otherwise, you may find that the adverse costs of not investing in the progression of your workforce may cost you a lot more in the long term. Therefore, it is important that you aren’t afraid to spend your time and money on developing your employee’s skills wherever possible.

Give Feedback

While giving or receiving feedback can be a daunting process, there is an undeniable value in what regular feedback can achieve. It is important that you take the time to sit down with your workforce and discuss how you are finding their work. This is a great way for you to get to know your staff on a deeper level and allows you to convey to them any concerns you may have. However, it is important that you don’t make feedback meetings full of criticism and not offer any praise.

One of the biggest obstacles to employee development is poor staff engagement.

If your workforce feel that they don’t receive praise when deserved, but are always being criticized, then this will have an impact on their dedication to their work. Annual reviews are a great way to keep in touch with your staff, and it allows them to inform you of any changes they feel should be made by you and other members of management.

Provide Extra Training

While there are many opportunities for your staff to develop internally within your business, you should also consider providing additional external forms of training where necessary. For example, Kettering University provide a variety of online courses such as an MS in operations management. By providing your staff with operations management degrees, you can develop their knowledge and skills while investing in both their future and the future of your company. Offering your staff an opportunity such as this is a great way to both attract and keep hold of the best staff that are out there.

Be Sure to Delegate

When running your own business, it is easy to want to be at the center of all decision-making, but if you want your employees to develop, then it is important that you learn the art of delegation. If you don’t give your members of staff the chance to practice different roles and acquire new skills, then they are unlikely to ever grow or develop. Handing over some of your tasks to your employees will also benefit you as it will give you the opportunity to focus on other tasks and free up to your time to work on other areas of your business.

Create Individual Development Plans

It is important that you give considerable attention to each of your members of staff so that they know you are invested in their development. A great way to do this is to create individual development plans for all your workforce so that both you and they know what they are working towards.

Now, if you have a member of staff who is happy in their current role, this doesn’t mean that they don’t require a development plan. No matter how small the goals in the development plans are, all members of staff should have something to be working towards.  Therefore, it is important that you make realistic and achievable goals.

Measure Performance  

It is important that as well as setting goals and providing feedback, that the progress of your staff is being monitored. Measuring performance can be a difficult task, but failure to assess how well a task was carried out can lead to errors. A great way to measure performance is to provide members of staff with the strengths and weaknesses of a task they have carried out. This way they can see their own successes, but also have an idea how to improve to take away with them ready for their next task. Performance measurement is the sort of subject that you can discuss at annual review meetings with your staff.

Helping your employees’ development is a long-term process which requires a considerable amount of time and effort, but it is a great investment in your staff as well as the future of your overall business.

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