Grooming today’s employees into tomorrow’s leaders is a smart practice in today’s workplace. Many leaders know that one of their main roles is to impart what they know into their employees and train their replacements. Most leaders are flexible and want to take on greater and greater tasks or positions and don’t want to remain stagnant in one role. So, they begin the training process to replace themselves with the next great employee in line. This takes a lot of time, patience and commitment on the part of leadership and a desire to learn and step up on the part of the employee. This can be a win-win situation, as it is far easier to hire within the organization rather than seeking new staff in the marketplace.
The Importance of Employee Development
While there are many reasons why developing employees is smart business, here are a few that rise to the top of my list. Maintaining a rigorous employee development program makes the organization competitive, especially among millennials, who desire more training and education opportunities. Millennials tend to get bored performing the same job without learning new information, so tailoring a generation-specific development model could be beneficial. How many companies out there competing for the same pool of employees? Lots of them. It is therefore important to develop good programs to keep your current team well-prepared and constantly learning.
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Another area that can improve with strong employee education is skills development. There appears to be a skills shortage out there and a development program might be the answer to that problem. We may actually have a shortage of specific employees who have job-critical skills in multiple industries. Younger employees may not want to go into certain careers and therefore never develop the skills it takes to work in health care, senior care, medicine, and heavy industry. Investing now in skills development may pay huge dividends years later.
Stop Making Excuses
How many times have we heard “I’d like to put more resources into training and development, but we just don’t have the time”? Other excuses include not having enough money, leaders who will train employees in specific skills, or other things are just more important. Some employers put off development programs for as long as they think they can, only to realize later that they should have invested up front and now they have few employees who can handle the job. Front-loading training, education and development is a smart practice and will pay off in many ways.
Some Ideas on Effective Employee Development
It takes hard work and buy-in on many fronts to develop and execute effective employee training and education programs. The first step to success is getting the team to support development efforts, from the top to the employees in the weeds. The managers in the middle need to fully support training efforts and encourage their staff to follow through and succeed in their training programs. Managers can be an effective “Go-Between” for the staff and upper leadership. They can not only cheer employees on, but can assist in the development and delivery of training programs.
Another thought about making an employee development program effective is to tap into what employees want to learn, are passionate about and find meaningful in their role within the organization. Many employees today want to learn, grow and succeed, especially millennials. They do not want to become stale at work. They may become bored quickly and find interest in other jobs for another employer.
Final Thoughts on Developing Employees into Leaders
The last thought on this topic is an important one, but amazingly enough, it is sorely lacking in some companies. An effective employee development program must have measurable goals and clear outcomes. What is the purpose of the program? What is leadership trying to accomplish? What skills are being developed and how will they be measured? Having no goals in an employee development program is like going on vacation with no destination in mind. You could go anywhere and do anything, but will it matter in the long run?
(NOTE: Interested in learning more about Leadership in health care? Checkout my Leadership CEUs on CEU Academy and try a FREE CEU today!)