We’re huge fans of continuous learning here at Humi. Especially in the midst of the infamous talent war, employee retention has the potential to be one of the biggest threats to your business.
One way to keep your people satisfied and committed to the success of your company long-term is through supporting employee growth and professional development initiatives. By encouraging and putting dollars behind professional development strategies, you can drive productivity and nurture a strong, lasting team. Let us tell you how.
What is professional development?
We’re talking training, certification, education – all the things you do after entering the workforce that helps you stay up to date, develop new skills, and ultimately advance in your career.
Even when not required, many professionals who are looking to excel in their career voluntarily seek out these opportunities. A workplace that invests in their people is ahead of the game, increasing efficiency, improving employee engagement, and encouraging team members to stick around for the long run.
Five ways to support employee growth and professional development
1. Pay for educational courses
Motivate your team to better themselves by putting dollars behind their professional development. Especially for new hires and those starting their careers, establishing a formal mentoring program has the possibility to be the most fruitful avenue for personal and professional employee growth. While senior staff can offer insights and professional guidance, they in turn can benefit from fresh perspectives of their mentee, and refine their leadership skills.
To learn how to implement a mentoring program in your organization, our friends at Indeed have a great article to help you get started.
We want Humigos to feel confident about improving efficiency and productivity, and encourage them to constantly find new ways to help them advance in their career. That’s why all permanent, full-time or part-time, employees are given an annual budget of $500 per person toward their professional development.
As a part of Humi’s learning and development provisions, we approve and encourage the following employee development:
- Formal training sessions (individual or Humi-wide)
- Humi coaching and mentoring
- Participating in conferences
- On-the-job training
- Job shadowing
- Job rotation
2. Build a recognition program
Formally recognizing your people for the hard work they do is a pivotal aspect of employee engagement, increasing retention, and helping to create a more positive, inclusive, and equitable workplace. Recognition also helps employees see their value in contributing to your company’s success.
Set up a social recognition program that helps establish praise as a regular part of your workplace culture. For more information on developing one employees actually want, register for our upcoming live event with Bucketlist Rewards on January 27th at 1PM EDT to learn how to make it happen.
3. Establish a mentoring program
Especially for new hires and those starting their careers, establishing a formal mentoring program has the possibility to be the most fruitful avenue for personal and professional employee growth. While senior staff can offer insights and professional guidance, they in turn can benefit from fresh perspectives of their mentee, and refine their leadership skills.
To learn how to implement a mentoring program in your organization, our friends at Indeed have a great article to help you get started.
4. Implement cross-departmental training
Another way for businesses to look internally to support employee growth and professional development is through cross-departmental training.
This form of employee training gives your people skills that span different job positions and responsibilities within your company. Additionally, employees are able to explore different avenues of internal growth opportunities that encourage them to stay.
5. Use real-time feedback
According to a study from Wakefield Research, more than 90% of employees would prefer that their manager address learning opportunities and mistakes in real-time, rather than only during annual review.
Compared to traditional performance reviews, real-time feedback drives high performance through flexibility, accuracy, and consistent engagement. Managers capture micro-moments of employee behaviour and coach them based on observations. Expectations or goals are then set to actualize feedback, in place of traditional performance reviews, to see how the employee has grown.
To dig deeper into real-time feedback, and why you should use it at your company, check out our ebook, 10X your team’s performance with real-time feedback.
Learn more with Humi
Want to learn more about how you can support employee development and improve retention at your company? Lucky for you, we threw together our top people-focused content for 2021. Dive into some more people wisdom right now by clicking here.
For insight into relevant and raw people challenges, and the tools you need to continuously shape the future of work, subscribe to Think with Humi – your number one people newsletter written by a real HR expert and Humi’s Director of People Operations, Andrea Bartlett.
