We all know one; the guy down the hall who was just promoted and now, for the first time, will manage a team. “What does he know about leadership?”, you may be thinking. Well, truth told, he probably doesn’t know much – but that isn’t his fault!
We see it too often in our own teams and organizations where people are put into a new position, but haven’t had the opportunity to develop the skills to effectively carry out their new responsibilities. So, what we see is that newly promoted guy muddling through, the best he knows how, leaving an unintentional wake of chaos. Brilliant in the position he was in before the promotion, now he taking the engagement and productivity of his team down with him. With no development or training, he will become a “performance issue” causing the organization to divert energy, resources and focus in getting results back to where they were. The impact: lost time, higher costs, reduced productivity – all straining organizational results.
Why is this scenario repeated time after time in organizations and businesses of all sizes? Certainly we all see the value in education and training – then why don’t we make it happen? Pure grit in getting the job done goes a long way, but proper training and development, produces capable, empowered and innovative employees that drive the business to the next level of success.
Here, then, are 6 tips that will help you structure a highly effective training and development effort to drive performance and, ultimately, results in your organization:
- Anticipate: Don’t wait to the last minute to put together development programs essential to the function and growth of your organization; think ahead about what organizational needs, and by extension, what employee development needs are likely to be. Start the training before it is actually needed; you will smooth the transition when the time comes for advancements or changes in responsibilities.
- Align: All training needs to align to the culture and objectives of the organization. Effective development focuses on the specific skills, competencies and expected behaviors and results of each role in the organization; ensure development of soft skills (leadership) as well as hard skills (technical).
- Make It Practical: Ensure training is readily accessible, timely, practical and applicable to day-to-day work activities. Let employees practice what they learn.
- Make It Sustainable: One-and-done development activities are rarely effective; ensure resources (trainers, online tools, etc.) are available for employees after the initial training, to refer back to as they face new and varying challenges that inevitably come with applying new skills and carrying out new responsibilities.
- Make It Interactive: Interactive learning, whether in the classroom, online training or on the job learning, is proven to make learning objectives stick.
- Make It Happen: Skill-up your employees now; they will be happier, more engaged, and definitely more productive – all pointing to better bottom line results for your organization.
Are you building a better business by building better employees?
Prism Partners International can help you drive superior performance and improved organizational results. We have combined our deep and practical, real-life private industry experience with our proven proprietary model to develop training that will truly elevate your people's performance. We have partnered with our Strategic Partner, Dynactive Software, to build the dynamics of an instructor-led learning experience into an affordable, stimulating, self-paced, online learning environment.
Through the power of “gamified” software, concepts are learned, reinforced and applied through online, interactive exercises, tested in offline, day-to-day work activities. Please contact us to learn how we can help.
We invite you sign-up for our periodic blog posts at http://www.prismpartnersintl.com/blog. We also ask that you join our LinkedIn Group (Strategic Human Capital Alignment Forum), Like Us on Facebook (Prism Partners International) and Follow Us on Twitter (@PrismPartners).