Every Day's a School Day: the Ways to Help Employees Develop Their Skills

Continual development is an absolute must in the workplace, but genuinely giving time and effort to ensure that our employees develop their skills can seem like a tough task. What's the solution? There are a number of methods to foster skill development and ensure your team members reach their full potential. Here are a few to incorporate.

Provide Access to the Right Learning Resources

Ensuring there is easy access to a variety of learning resources from online courses, webinars, and other educational materials can enable employees to pursue self-directed learning based on their career goals and interests. This is where an LMS, short for Learning Management System, can be very useful. 

An LMS can manage and deliver various types of content, including documents but also workshops, courses, and videos, ensuring that employees are not just able to access the appropriate information but can also find a number of ways to learn it which is just as critical. Learning styles are different from employee to employee, and therefore finding the right balance of resources within an LMS can make a significant difference.

Establish Clear Plans for Skill Development

A structured approach to skill development is critical, but to do this, we have to create individual development plans for every employee. While a person-centered delivery plan should be in place when it comes to implementing certain skills, these plans need to outline specific skill areas that benefit from improvement while also setting measurable goals and providing a roadmap for achieving them. 

Ultimately when an employee is learning how to develop a whole new skill set, it should not be to the detriment of their work. Regularly revisiting and updating these plans ensure that they align with the objectives of both the organization and the individual.

Offer Workshops and Training

There are so many benefits to having workshops, especially for employees who either do not have the ability to focus on an e-learning course or don't have the time. There are certain considerations to bear in mind before you implement a day-long training workshop, but the sessions can cover a wide range of topics that are applicable to your employees' roles. This goes back to ensuring that you are providing resources that are engaging for employees. 

Training can be a very dull affair, which is why you've got to pick the right training providers that have teachers who can engage employees by using a variety of teaching methods. 

We have to be careful when choosing training providers because it can easily make employees think that they're wasting their time. This is a very common concern, which is why you need to ensure the subject matter is as engaging as humanly possible. This might be a big ask, especially with overly technical and dry subjects; however, any subject can be interesting when the teacher is interesting.

Foster a Learning Culture

If there is one problem with organizations and the topic of education and learning, it's that learning new skills is something that can be very stop-start. In other words, it's something that is only put into practice after a long drawn-out period of time where there's an assessment of the current skill set within the company. Instead, it would be better to cultivate an environment where continuous development is celebrated. 

It takes a lot to embed a culture of learning, but one of the best methods is to very simply recognize employees who are actively engaging in improving their skills. Rewarding a growth mindset can be done through shout-outs in team meetings or a structured recognition program. 

Changing the culture of an organization doesn't happen overnight, and can take months or years to put in place. However, continuous development is something that we should actively seek out and it will benefit your business when you find those people who do it because it then becomes firmly embedded into the attitudes of the organization and you can then start to find new employees who have the abilities or at the very least the desire to better themselves.

Rotate Job Responsibilities

An excellent way to diversify people's skill sets but also expose employees to other parts of the business. The benefits of shadowing somebody for a day are many, and it can also enhance a variety of problem-solving capabilities. 

When employees see how others are doing their jobs or are providing insight into another part of the business, this can inspire people to become more well-rounded to benefit the business but also benefit their approach to doing things.

Implement Mentorship Programs

A mentorship approach to working is not just great for enhancing skills, but also relationships. Mentorship provides a valuable opportunity for knowledge transfer, skill sharing, and professional guidance. Getting mentors externally can be a powerful catalyst for skill development and growth within an organization. 

Part of the problem many businesses have is that once someone is in a role, there is no opportunity to develop themselves because of the demands of that job. Targets and KPIs become the priority, and therefore, they will believe they don't have the time to meet these, but instead, we should place a priority on making time to upskill. This could be a few hours a week or having a mentor look at someone's progression over a long period of time.

Providing Constructive Feedback

We also need to remember that the skill development journey is also about making sure employees understand how good they are in the eyes of the organization. Sometimes, an employee won't know how good they are at something unless you give regular feedback. 

It's going to highlight their strengths and areas for improvement, which can foster a culture of continuous development, but also empower employees to refine their skills.

If your employees are not given the opportunity to develop their skills, this isn't just detrimental for them, but is also going to have a negative effect on the business. There is the potential to destroy your company from the inside if you do not prioritize skills and education. Every day should be a school day, especially in business.