Hi everyone, this is a blog post that went up on the DPG blog yesterday - thought I would share it here. Would love to hear your thoughts! Jason
Even if many companies are unaware of it, workforce development can be nurtured even with reduced budgets and limited time away from daily work. Imagine employees being involved in their everyday tasks AND benefiting from expert guidance given by their managers. Unfortunately, most organizations are either unaware of or slow to adopt the strategies needed to constantly encourage their employees, day after day.
For an increase in workforce capability, companies need to adopt a creative long-term vision and to support their employees in the processes they undergo. For a more hands-on employee development, organization can make use of 5 important tips. These tips provide the know-how for tailored stretch assignments, an elegant increase in the self-awareness of your workers, partner-wise developments, and a suitable shaping of the environment. What's more, they can be effortlessly integrated into employees' everyday routines without further enhancing their workload.
Tip #1: Create a connection between motivation and performance
If you want your company to benefit from quick performance results, than you have to reward employees' participation and effort accordingly. This doesn't necessarily translate into a physical, financial benefit, but rather on a morale gain. People are more motivated and engaged to perform best when there is a positive result. How can you reward employee performance? Very simple. Create two ribbons; one for development and one for results, and give them out at the proper time. This will considerably raise your employees' interest and challenge them to exceed their usual limits.
Tip #2: Take into account the employee cap
Each worker can perform more or less, according to his individual limits. If you know that somebody in the company can't perform better than he already does, than there's no need to focus your efforts on that individual, but rather take into consideration or departments. On the other hand, if you know that one or more employees are performing below their potential, than find out what is the cause for their lack of motivation and find strategies to help them improve their performance.
Tip #3: Develop relationships based on trust
For most employees in a company, trust is the base element which keeps them motivated to work and reach their objectives, besides the financial rewards. Therefore, you have to be sincere when talking with your staff and find out which their needs and desires are. Feedback is a vital key element to take into account, so make sure to do your best in finding out new means of getting your employees' dreams come true. However, also keep in mind the trust element, so when a solution proposal is far from reality, tell your employees this and also that you will do your best to find other means of replacing it.
Tip #4: Leverage team learning
Although individual training is important and benefiting for a company, it's the team power which has a greater impact on the company's overall performance. Therefore, you have to stimulate your employees to work consistently together, in teams, in order to achieve certain purposes easier. If you want new employees to learn faster what and how they have to accomplish in the organization, than put together in a team with more experienced members, and give them proper directions regarding their objective. This way you'll develop relationships and help new workers to integrate faster.
Tip #5: Create a continuous learning strategy
Although the traditional classroom training methods were enough to grant a company's adaptability a few years ago, nowadays they're simply not enough to grant performance. Employees too often quickly forget what they learn in the classroom, plus there's the chance for them to not be fully focused throughout those sessions. In this regard, besides hiring a qualified trainer, you have to into account the self-learning strategies. Continuous learning tools such as WalkMe can prove very helpful in the process, since they teach employees exactly what they have to do to reach their objectives and they allow them to do it at their own pace. Furthermore, the time and space means don't represent a restriction anymore.
Although creating a compelling employee motivation strategy and boosting their performance in every day work are two tasks that have never been easy to accomplish, by following the above 5 tips you should greatly raise your chances of stepping ahead of the competition.
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