What Training Should you Recommend for Employees?

No matter what size of business you operate, it can benefit from employee training. Chances are your staff already has the skills needed for the role - that’s why you took them on in the first place - but everyone has their weak spots, and you can build on employees’ strengths as well. 

In this article, we take a look at some of the most common employee training areas and what they can expect to learn when they attend a workshop. These training areas include things like communication strategies, productivity training, project management, and leadership training.

Communication Strategies 

Most people can think of an example of good communication and poor communication. If communication is not working, you tend to misunderstand each other, and complications arise. This isn’t a big deal when you’re going for coffee; it’s more important when you run a business.  

If you want to run your business more efficiently, then focus on your communication strategies. Communication training takes the form of workshops that develop better strategies for listening, speaking, and checking your understanding. This training helps to fine-tune employees’ skills.

Productivity Training 

When it comes to productivity in the workplace, time management is a high priority. Unless your employees are using their time effectively, you will lose money which will affect your bottom line. At the same time, you don’t want to pressure your workers too much, so offer some training.  

In productivity training, your employees will learn how to develop a clear sense of purpose, create priorities for the day and week, change negative behavior patterns, and develop strategies for time management. This type of training can improve your bottom line right away.

Project Management

These days, every task is a project, especially if you are working across platforms and digital workstations. Unless you have a suitable project manager and employees trained in project management strategies, you might run a business that is inefficient and loses out on revenue. 

Again, project management training takes place on retreats and trains employees to work with groups to reach goals and meet targets. Project management can be complicated, especially when sharing complex ideas; these skills need to be sharpened to take your business forwards. 

Leadership Training 

Building a strong and effective workplace takes time; it also takes some investment. One thing you most certainly need in your workplace is leaders, some of them are born, but most of them are made. You can turn your employees into leaders by investing in some leadership training. 

TKI is a form of leadership training that supports conflict handling, which keeps your workplace harmonized and productive. Why not invest in TKI training to create an assertive and cooperative workplace that results in a stronger team that understands each other better.  

Health and Safety Training

When it comes to the safety of your staff, it’s important to do what you can to provide them with all the tools they need to look after themselves and each other. Being able to spot potential risks within the workplace, as well as ensuring they stay on the right side of the law in everything they do, is imperative. 

That’s why it’s good to be mindful of both personal and professional problems your staff can face, especially legally. Fentanyl offenses are on the rise, so it’s good to check in with your staff to ensure they’re doing everything to protect themselves and their peers.

Diversity Training 

The modern workplace contains a rich variety of personalities, ethnicities, sexualities, and genders, but not every workplace is equipped to support everyone in the best ways. Diversity training is important for helping managers to understand and support individual differences. 

However, diversity training is useful for employees at any level. Investing in diversity training helps to create a more inclusive and happier workplace; it also makes your workplace more productive because your employees feel more included and happier in their work environment.  

Digital skills 

Digital skills are often thought to be soft skills, things like word processing skills, email skills, and search engine skills; however, there is a little more to it than that. Although many of your employees will tell you they have digital skills, they might not have all the skills needed today. 

Suppose your employees have limited skills in spreadsheets, presentation software, and customer management systems. Why not send them on a course to upgrade their skills and offer more value to your business? Digital skills don’t take much time to learn but can add excellent value.  

Diversity training is important for helping managers to understand and support individual differences. There are many companies who specialize in diversity in the workplace services that can make sure no one feels left out in the office.

Final Thoughts 

If you want your business to grow in the right direction, then you need to train your employees and add value to the business core. Without training, your staff will be less productive, more fractious, and have less connection - not what you want in the modern workplace at any level. Growing your business takes time and investment, especially in core skills for your staff. 

There’s good news! Training your staff and increasing their skillset has never been easier; all you have to do is invest in the best skills training program for your business. Whether you need stronger leadership or better communication, build up the skill you need in your business today.

Leadership and Management Skills That Sports Are Teaching You

By: Jordan Fuller of www.golfinfluence.com

During our younger years, many of us participated in sports, and the experience gave us all a lot of sense about ourselves as individuals, along with teaching us about hand/eye coordination and the importance of exercise in being healthy.

Sports do far much more than just build athleticism. Athletes learn how to push themselves and strive as a team, working together towards a goal and learn the value of sportsmanship. Each player has a role to play that through the direction of the coach determines whether the team succeeds or not.

This all translates very well into one’s social and professional life, and the leadership lessons can be applied to today’s business world.

Time Management

Any football player, at any level, can tell you that practice is a daily occurrence. Teams come to practice and go through preparation, and then get to work. A good coach expects his team ready to practice at a set time, not arriving at that time. Good athletes show up early and are ready to go when the whistle blows.

In a work environment time is money, and balancing your workload between business commitments and personal time, among other distractions is important. Athletes learn to be prepared, on time, and how to have a schedule and a plan that is based on time and resources that are available to them.

Companies effectively manage their daily processes to ensure workplace efficiency, and learning early how to follow a schedule during participation in sports can help to learn early how to manage time and employees’ time, keeping clients satisfied.

Individuals Makeup the TEAM

One of the most popular cliches in all of the sports is “there is no “I” in TEAM,” and understanding the principle that success is better achieved if everyone works together, as a cohesive team, is just as important in the boardroom as on the field of play.  Like how most sports teams know that every athlete on the field is important to success, so is every member of the team putting together a large business deal.

Setting Goals and Expectations

All athletes have goals, whether it’s to win a game, better their statistics, or move into a new level of their game. Goal setting is a skill that is mastered in athletics and can easily be transferred to any business setting. From a client relationship-building standpoint, it’s also useful as by finding out your client’s goals, and what they are trying to achieve you can help them to achieve those goals. Once we know those, we can help to create a plan and develop processes to meet our clients’ goals.

Identifying Sources of Strategy

When playing a sport, the strategy taken by a coach or player can be the difference between winning and losing. Football is all about the style of offense your team runs, or how your defense takes on the approach of stopping the offense. In the business world, much of the time is spent developing strategies and coming up with new tools to implement ways to succeed with a new business venture, or how to market to new demographics to increase sales. 

Much like on the field, time is spent analyzing the competition strategy to ensure that we stay ahead of the game, effectively planning and executing our own plan to get or stay ahead.

The Numbers Tell the Tale

Athletes are driven by the scoreboard, along with the numbers that represent how they are succeeding or failing. Just as a scoreboard or stat sheet will tell you how effectively executing your play of the game, or realizing your goals to succeed, businesses collect similar data. Management teams collect, calculate, and analyze data all the time with respect to how successful their strategies are working, or failing. These results help to keep employees and staff accountable, as well as to motivate them to hit their objectives to do the best job they can.

Professional Representation

Watch sometime if you have the chance to see a college or high school basketball or football team heading to a game, you’ll usually see the players well dressed, sometimes in a suit coat and tie. Representing their school on the road in a respectful, professional manner is something that most of the best coaches try to impress upon their players. In the workplace, making an impression upon clients and customers in a professional manner is important, and usually translates to success. Even in a warehouse environment, a uniform or standard dress code which typically includes the company logo or colors can convey to clients that brand representation and presentation are priorities of the company.

Relationships are Key

In sports, coaches and captains know the importance of building relationships with their athletes and teammates. The time spent together as teammates, learning their interests outside the game and building relationships is a key step to building team chemistry, which leads to success on and off the field. Likewise, the importance of relationships in the work environment is a major factor in the success or failure of a business, creating a perfect team might be difficult but achievable. Having a business that runs like a “well-oiled machine” can make production numbers skyrocket and keep morale among managers and employees high. 

Determination and Empathy

In trying to get people to go the extra mile and enthusiastically jump on board with a project, keeping your level of enthusiasm high can be a big help. Also, show them you care about them, not just as an employee but as a person, and the message can get across that you want them to not only be satisfied with their job but that you care about them as a person. This attitude will be helpful when building a foundation of trust and camaraderie, making your team stronger in the end.

Finishing/Closing the Deal

When setting goals and working towards checking them off your list is all part of the process of improvement. Whether you're at practice trying to move into the starting lineup, or stay in the lineup, or working on a project to bring in new clients or expand the sales demographic, it’s important to keep working until the job is done.

Why Employee Incentive Programs?

As much as any boss or manager would love to work with a team of driven self-starters, it’s often not the case. What to do then? How do you go about motivating a group of people who you know is most likely showing up to work only to keep paying their bills? It’s not easy, that’s for sure.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the psychological terms ‘negative reinforcement’ and ‘positive reinforcement.’ Negative reinforcement is the reinforcement of desirable outcomes with actions rooted in fear, such as punishment, shaming, or physical abuse. Positive reinforcement, on the other hand, is the reinforcement of desirable behavior with incentives, such as monetary bonuses, praise, and social acceptance. Do you have any idea which type of support is more likely to give you a hard-working team?

If you guess the latter, you’re right. Research shows that positive reinforcement will often generate more desired outcomes than negative reinforcement. It makes sense, then, that this theory would apply, if not flourish, in the workplace as well. But how exactly can a higher-up implement positive reinforcement to motivate his team.

Three words: employee incentives programs.

Employee incentives programs are the corporate version of a carrot on a stick. Well, a solid gold carrot that is. Your paycheck is most likely the regular carrot. Whatever kind of carrots are involved, it doesn’t take away from the fact that there are a lot of fabulous programs like these that get employees taking action and contributing more wholeheartedly to their company.

However, one question that remains is, how effective are these programs? The statistics are promising. Ninety percent of big-name companies already use employee incentive programs, and for a good reason, as 80 percent of employees would prefer incentives over a bigger paycheck. Moreover, 78 percent of employees are willing to stay in their current positions thanks to the fabulous incentives and rewards programs they have access to in their company. Think employee incentive programs are a crock? Think again.

Of course, not just any incentive will do; these programs should be designed with your average employee’s wants and needs in mind. After all, how much good would a hoop and stick be in this day and age? Unless there’s a viral video idea swirling around in one of your employee’s heads, chances are you should pass on this kind of incentive.

So if you’re in a managerial or leadership position at your company, stick around. Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about the wonderfully diverse employee incentive programs available right now.

Paid vacations of your choosing

There’s nothing like winning the lottery at work--the vacation lottery, that is. But how can you design a rewards program with customized vacations? Doesn’t that involve a lot of planning and extra work? It does, but you can streamline the process to make it easier for everyone. All you need to do is have your employees fill out a survey asking them questions about their preferred destinations, time frames, and travel budgets. That way, you’ll have their dream vacation info on file if they do end up winning one of these great trips. You can go one step further by creating a custom itinerary according to their preferences. It will also help your company to allocate an annual travel budget for this purpose.

Unlimited sick leaves

This incentive almost sounds too good to be true. Believe it or not, it isn’t, and it takes a few protective measures to make it that way. First, you’ll need to adjust your employee’s file to reflect their newly-minted status as an unlimited sick day-haver. Next, make sure you have a work management plan in place for when this employee decides to take sick days at will. This backup plan will help prevent any extra work buildup that may accumulate in the employee’s absence. Finally, allow for a two to three-day adjustment period where your employee is given half of their regular workload. This lighter schedule will facilitate their transition back into the office.

Streaming subscriptions

What better way to motivate your employees than by giving them something they can completely veg out to? Streaming subscriptions are now more valuable than ever, and they’re sure to be a hit with your employees. Before you do anything else, though, make sure you’ve allocated the amount for these streaming subscriptions in your budget. Don’t forget to give your employees options, too; we recommend the popular streaming services, like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and HBO+. Not only is this an amazingly relevant incentive, but it could even promote lively cultural discussions around the water cooler, or wherever employees like to take a break nowadays.

Spousal death benefits

Giving your employees’ spouses ample time to grieve their loved ones is an excellent way to demonstrate how much their husband or wife meant to your company. While this incentive works better for larger businesses, you can still retool it to work for small to mid-sized companies. Many companies with this incentive design it like this: stock benefits, $1000 monthly to the employee’s children until they turn 19, and half of the employee’s annual salary to the spouse for a decade.

Flexible schedules

Flextime is a beautiful reward for employees whose personal lives are a bit unpredictable. Moreover, giving your employees a sense of autonomy over their work schedules is an excellent way to convince them to keep working for you. However, it’s good to give your employees a set of options they can choose from rather than letting them have total full reign.

As the employer, you can design these options any way you’d like, but there are a few popular choices that seem to work well for several companies. Some of these options include four-day workweeks with ten-hour shifts each, rotating shifts, four days of nine-hour shifts, and then one day of a four-hour shift, or six and a half-hour shifts six days a week. Parents with school-age children will appreciate flexible schedules, especially, as they’ll be able to fit in their work around their hectic personal lives. If you want to get a better idea of what flexible shift options your team would prefer, conduct an office-wide survey.

Tuition reimbursement

The armed forces aren’t the only ones who can help people pay for their schooling; more and more companies are beginning to offer the same. This incentive might work best for companies whose workforce is younger than 40, as millennials tend to be the ones saddled with the most school debt. Furthermore, this kind of reward might function better in companies that demand specific training, such as engineering. That way, employees will be incentivized to continue working for the company, as the company will be the one footing most of the bill for the training that will help their company grow.

House cleaning services

Unless you have a team of neat freaks, this reward will be a hit with just about any of your employees. Who has time to clean their place after a long day at the office? Perhaps the aforementioned neat freaks do, but the vast majority of people don’t. This reward is powerful as it helps employees maintain their personal space outside of work. A housecleaning voucher signals to your team that you care for their wellbeing--both in and out of the workplace.

Now that you’ve learned a little bit about the fantastic benefits of employee incentive programs, what are you waiting for? For more ideas on rewards programs like these, visit this website: https://www.mtievents.com/employee-incentives/.

Employee Health And Wellbeing: It Matters More Than Ever

The health and wellbeing of your employees matter more now than ever. While many workplaces are closed, businesses are beginning to think about life after the pandemic and what it’s going to be like when colleagues start working together again.

There’ll be a lot of changes to make to policies and workspaces, but the health of your employees is what should take priority. Take the following into consideration and make sure your employees’ health and wellbeing come first.

Put new measures in place to keep employees safe

Coming back after periods of lockdown, remote working, and isolation, the workplace is going to be an entirely new landscape. Your company will need to look at its policies and ensure that employees are as safe as they can be when they return to work. From putting more sanitation products out for employees to being strict on quarantining, there are different measures you can put in place to maintain a healthy workplace and keep your teams safe.

Get ready to offer flexible working

Many employers have had to adjust their working practices to be able to survive the pandemic. It’s new territory for many businesses, but allowing employees to work from home is not only keeping them safe, but it’s demonstrating that it is something that businesses can implement successfully in the future. First, Twitter, and now Facebook has announced permanent work-from-home arrangements for employees, and it could be a trend that many other businesses adopt over the coming months. Flexible working could have many benefits for your business, and potentially save you money on your operating costs too. 

Consider changing employee benefits

People are starting to become more concerned about their health, and this is something your business should be thinking about too. There are various health benefits your business could be provided in lieu of others to help match their priorities. Private health, vision insurance, gym memberships, and other types of employee benefits could be of interest to your employees right now. Consult with your workers about any proposed changes to make sure they have a say.

Help employees keep on top of their mental health

Mental health is just as important as physical health. It’s been a difficult time for many recently, and as an employer, you could do a lot to boost employees’ mental health. There are ways you can support employee mental health during a pandemic and beyond, helping to build a happy and healthy workforce. It’s important to be understanding as people transition back into the office environment, so make allowances and be prepared for things to take time.

Employee health and wellbeing should always be a priority for your business, but it will be even more important going forward. To help build a strong team, you need to keep them healthy and motivated, and prioritizing health in the workplace will make a strong start. Focus on what you can do to improve employee health and wellbeing both now and for the future.

Employee Rights: What You Need to Know

Many things can happen in the workplace. Some are positive, such as being offered a promotion or making friends out of colleagues. On other occasions, you might face situations that make you uncomfortable or fear to lose your job. While in some circumstances there might not be much you can do, it’s important to be aware of what your rights are as an employee.

Don’t let your boss or other senior staff members get away with illegal practices — here are some of the basics that you ought to know.

You Can Say No

The general attitude to getting by in the workplace is that you’re expected to say ‘yes’ to everything. It’s true that being an employee with a positive outlook who is a team player will be looked upon favorably. However, don’t make the mistake of thinking this means you have to carry out tasks that make you uncomfortable. While your job might challenge you from time to time, if you feel unsafe or insecure about doing something your boss has asked you to do, you have the right to say no.

Harassment

No one should be made to feel uncomfortable or upset in their place of work — not by their boss, and not by their colleagues, either. Harassment can come in differing forms: you might be receiving threats, or being constantly undermined and ridiculed. Or perhaps you feel as though someone at work is making inappropriate remarks to you of a sexual nature. If you feel as though you are being harassed, make a formal complaint to HR. If this procedure fails, you may have to seek legal action and take it further.

Training

You are entitled to receive adequate training for your job role. If you feel as though you need to learn more about your job, you have the right to ask your boss/manager to provide further learning programs for you. This might involve retaking previous training courses or using alternative learning methods.

Redundancy

There might come a time when the business you work for has to make some cut-backs. Unfortunately, this could result in you losing your job. If you are facing redundancy, or have recently been made redundant, the company you work for should give you a reasonable period of notice. You might also be entitled to some severance pay, although it is probably best to get some legal advice on redundancy to know fully what your entitlement is.

Discrimination

It is illegal for an employer to dismiss or treat certain employees differently due to their gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, or mental health. Naturally, some things may have to be altered to better suit a person’s circumstances, but these should always be discussed respectfully and agreed upon by both the employer and the employee. If you feel as though you are missing out on opportunities or targeted at work due to race, gender, etc., again, report it to HR and take it further if necessary.

If you’re unsure about a situation at work and what you can do, take the time to further research your employee rights for guidance.

How to Leverage Your Human Resources to Achieve Your Business Goals

Within a company, you have several assets. You have your liquid assets, your invested assets, and all the elements of your business that constitute your operational arms. But, perhaps most importantly, you have people – workers who are willing to graft for hours each week to work towards the goals you set in the board room. To leverage this all-important asset effectively, you need to work towards efficiency and productivity in your workforce, and this guide will explain how you can achieve that leap.

Managing Your Resources

Next up, you should consider how you’re organizing your workforce to get the best out of them every day. This is less about man-management and more about the structures that facilitate the efficient work of all your staff – and your ability to be flexible with workloads and projects. 

Using software developed to help HR departments can solve structural issues in your workforce, freeing up labor to work on different and more exciting projects. OKR software can help you not only organize your workforce but also spread tasks evenly between your employees – and translate goals drawn up in the board room to actionable smaller tasks for all your staff to rally around.

Motivation

Amongst workers, motivation is as important as skills and knowledge. The most motivated staff will solve problems without consulting a manager and will go the extra mile to get projects finished by their deadlines and to put in the extra hours to meet their targets. In contrast, demotivated staff are far less likely to pull towards a common goal – leading your business to lower efficiency and missed targets.

Motivating your staff can be difficult. It requires a blend of contractual benefits – like better pay and perks like healthcare – and managerial nous, which will help employees feel they’re valued on a personal level. Regarding the latter, if your managers can organize frequent meetings with the staff that works under them, they’ll be able to receive and give feedback – motivating staff to feel they’re being invested in by their superiors.

Incentives and Rewards

Finally, if you’re pushing to get your business to the next level, you’ll be setting ambitious targets that all of your workforce will be striving towards. Whether those targets involve sales figures, profit percentages, overhead cost reductions, or marketing successes, it’s important to set these goals – but also then offer incentives and rewards for staff when you manage to hit them. 

A reward can take many forms. An office party can help you celebrate when you hit the customer figures you’ve been aiming for, while an investment in your office environment, following a successful scale-up, can reward employees by improving the space in which they work. You should also consider personal rewards – like vouchers, pay rises, or company-wide recognition – for those whose work contributes the most to the realization of your business goals in 2020 and beyond.

Use these three tips to leverage your human resources for the good of your business, making your staff a key asset in your up-scaling and target-meeting.

Four Ways to Improve Your Relationships with Staff

As a founder, CEO, manager or overseer, it’s important to understand that you’re not only a role model and a motivational leader for staff – you’re also a person in whom they can confide and share. It’s in light of this secondary role that this article examines how you, as a manager or person of responsibility, can forge lasting, robust relationships with those who work with you.

With four key tips listed below, you’ll learn how to approach this delicate subject with wisdom and empathy, enabling your employees to feel listened to and accepted in your company.

Regular One-to-Ones

There can be no alternative to giving and receiving one-to-one feedback with all the members of staff that you’re responsible for. It’s in these private meetings that you’re able to put your colleagues at ease, and ask them to share their experiences, their struggles, and their feedback.

For your part, this is primarily a listening exercise – though by offering key feedback, including positive comments, you’ll be able to motivate your staff to perform better on a daily and weekly basis. This is a time to connect – so use it wisely and patiently to understand the needs of your staff that bit better.

Feedback Sheets

Another way to get to know your staff and to listen to their concerns is to run a staff survey in your office, asking your workforce a number of questions that you’ll be able to track over time to see where you’re improving and where things are beginning to slip. These work best when they’re digitized – like the surveys provided by Inpulse.com, which collate your feedback data into an easy-to-read summary for your reflection.

Feedback helps employers act better, and gives you a unique window into the satisfaction of your staff.

Team-Building

Sometimes, it’s difficult to meet staff on their level when you’re in the office – the hierarchical structure, and occasional discipline that you have to distribute, tends to set you apart slightly. Nonetheless, if you’re interested in getting over this barrier, an informal team-building trip can be just the ticket. Whether you decide to build a raft together to cross an icy lake, or head to a clue-solving escape room as a team of equals, these events are great opportunities to hear more about your staff in an informal and relaxed setting – while also helping them bond together to overcome challenges.

Rewards and Thanks

Most staff members put in the hours and the hard work to get the job done. They may not be the most zealous staff members you’ve ever worked with, but they’re devoted to their jobs, motivated by your leadership, and keen to deliver on the targets that you set for them.

As such, it’s important that you recognize those members of staff who really are throwing their weight behind their work – and here, it’s crucial that you reward and thank individuals and teams for their dogged and determined contributions – including with vouchers, nights out, or gift hampers.

There you have it – four key ways in which you can forge better relationships with your staff in 2020 and beyond.