We talked a little about employee development in our article on talent management, but it’s a topic that deserves some more attention. Right now, the era of “the Great Resignation” is winding down. As we enter a moment in which employees avoid risk and uncertainty by clinging to the job they have, you want to make sure that the employees you have are staying with you for the right reasons. You want to know they’re showing up not because they are afraid there are no other options but because they are happy, engaged, and always giving their best. Providing opportunities for employee development creates that appealing, rewarding workplace that keeps employees engaged.
Employee development also creates rewards and incentives in more horizontal organizations where promotion isn’t always an option. If you want your business to grow, you have to invest in it. The best asset to invest in is your team of employees who will make that growth happen. When you invest in their success, you are investing in your growth.
Before You Hire
Growth doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of strategy. Strategy informs your goals, which informs the metrics that let you know if you’re achieving your goals, which informs your sales, marketing, and operations frameworks. Before you can find the right people who can help you achieve your goals, you have to develop the right roles.
You do this by envisioning the role as something that can grow and evolve with the employee and with your business. You might expect an employee to fulfill one set of duties on day one, but if you have an idea of how your business will grow over the next six months, year, five years, you can get a sense of how a role and an employee might grow with it. Envisioning roles as dynamic rather than static also means that you can prepare ahead of time the kinds of employee development options you’ll need to make available.
Identify Your Employees’ Hidden Talents
Take the time to survey your team’s interests and abilities. You may discover some hidden talent waiting to be developed. We use a proprietary tool called the Skill MatRxTM to identify where we already have talent and where we need to recruit. It is a self-assessment in which employees in each department rate their competence in various skills within their department. The matrix will give you a clear idea of where you have sufficient talent, where there are gaps, and whether you should provide additional training or hire someone new.
Bring Your Team Closer Together
You probably already have a number of subject matter experts in each department. Identify the experts and let them take on mentorship roles, helping to both develop employees in their department and share knowledge with other departments. For example, marketers can lean on experts in the product development department to get a better understanding of the products they are marketing, while product development can consult sales and marketing teams to get a better understanding of what customers want and how they use the products. In the end, everyone gets a better understanding of the business, which will ultimately improve their performance.
Invest Time in Teaching Now, Reap the Rewards Later
If you started your business from scratch and spent months or years doing everything yourself, it can be hard to delegate. After all, no one knows this business like you do, and there’s a good chance no one can do things like you do. And even if they can, they might not do it the same way you do it.
Many small business owners end up living by the mantra, “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” Doing everything yourself, however, is not a scalable process. It might work when you’re just starting out, but as your business grows, you just won’t have the capacity.
The solution is to invest time in working out your processes, documenting them, and supporting employees throughout the learning curve. A business owner’s ultimate goal should be to have a business that can run without them. Training, process documentation, and employee development is how you get there.
An Ongoing Process
Building a successful team doesn’t end with hiring. It doesn’t even end with training. It is an ongoing process that begins when you decide to create a new position or hire a new employee for an existing one and continues for as long as that employee is with you. Employee development is an important part of that process.
