71% of executives say that employee engagement is critical to their company’s success but concerningly only 13% of employees are actually engaged at work.

If you’ve been keeping up with this week’s articles, you will already know how to take control of your own personal and professional development; now it’s time to focus on your staff.

Having an outstanding workforce and successful organisation ultimately starts with ensuring that your employees have all the skills they need to do their job well - skilled individuals means competent departments which leads to a successful organisation.

So how can you kickstart staff development in your organisation today?

How Much of an Impact Does Staff Development Really Have?

An organisation is only as good as the people in it; your organisation’s success relies heavily on your staff’s skills, abilities and performance.

It’s no secret that staff want to feel cared for and that how much recognition we give them ultimately determines how hard they are willing to work; in fact, 69% of employees say they would work harder if they were better appreciated.

A great way to make sure your employees feel cared for is by demonstrating a commitment to supporting their professional advancement and personal growth.

Whilst employee development is undoubtedly a long term initiative and investment, it does also offer short term benefits such as:

• Increased employee loyalty
  94% of employees would stay with a company longer if there was an investment in learning
  
  
• Higher productivity
  74% of employees admit that they don’t think they’re reaching their full potential
  
  
• Reduced employee turnover
  40% of employees with no/little training leave in the first year

What Different Ways Are There to Develop My Staff?

Employers should aim to provide both formal development opportunities, like a professional development programme or external staff training, but also less formal ways of learning such as:

• Lunch and Learns
  Giving staff the opportunity to learn from each other in a relaxed environment where they are comfortable
  
  
• Opportunities to Collaborate
  Allowing your staff to develop crucial soft skills such as communication and active listening.
  
  
• Management Coaching
  Helping your managers help your staff by teaching them to recognise their direct reports’ unique strengths and understand what drains and what motivates them

Regardless of exactly how you choose to develop your staff, one of the most important things is that you do it as soon as possible to begin building a development momentum early on in your staff’s careers.

How Can I Get Started as Soon as Possible?

Before you dive into developing your employees and enrolling them on any and every training programme you see fit, you need to craft a strategic and well-thought-through talent development strategy.

Every company’s talent development strategy will be different and unique however, a great place to start and a method that can be applied to most if not all organisations is creating a PDP for each of your staff members.

The best way to do this is to arrange a 1-1 meeting with each employee where you explain the importance of personal and professional development and then work together to create a PDP for them that contributes to their own goals and your organisation’s goals too.

If you’re looking for a simple and easy to use PDP template, you can download one for free below.

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We hope you enjoyed our ‘How to Tackle Personal and Professional Development Like a Pro’ article series!

If you’re looking to develop yourself as a leader or if you’re looking to train any of your managers, sales staff, customer service reps or HR support staff, you can view our ESFA-funded development programmes by clicking here.

In our next article series, we’re going to be exploring what strategic drift is, how it impacts companies, and how you can best avoid it, so keep an eye out for our email tomorrow…