Employee development can be the difference between excellent team performance and having something left to be desired.
Only 20% of employees in the United States are passionate about their job. This could mean your employees need more motivation to give 100% of their best effort. Or, you may not be communicating your ideas in the best way to your employees. Either way, consider looking into development programs to improve employee performance.
What are the best ways to develop your employees? What are some tactics that you may not have thought of before?
Here is a guide for you!
Get to know your people with Strengths development programs
Employees who use their strengths deliver better outcomes and generate greater value for those around them and their organisations. Identifying and then using your strengths leads to more confidence, engagement with work, productivity, and the ability to build better relationships with colleagues.
Strengthscope® standard is the key to discovery.
Designed to help people identify what makes them truly unique, enabling honest and authentic conversations. It empowers them to develop and stretch their strengths, as well as productively overcome blockers to their performance.
Not only will your people feel seen by you, but from a management perspective, you will get an authentic insight into how to develop your people to achieve their personal peak performance.
Team projects
One thing you can do to get more out of your employees is to give them a team project. This can be anything from coming up with the best marketing slogan, an excellent logo, and the best promotion for your product or service.
Regardless of the project, the point should be to get your employees to work closer together. From there, you have the tricky part as a manager of taking a step back. If you are going to implement this, you almost have to act like a teacher in a classroom. You can be there to answer any questions, but you cannot dictate what your employee teams do with your project.
Doing this alongside the StrengthscopeTeam™ report will allow employees to get to know each other better and let them get a better feel for how everybody operates. Understanding another person’s work ethic can help improve employee chemistry. Sometimes, this can help employees improve their skills if they pair up with the right person.
For example, one employee may have Creativity as a strength, while another may be energized by the Execution quadrant, which can support their idea and bring it to life. Pairing these employees together could allow them to bring out the best in each other.
Creating a budget
Creating a budget could be very beneficial for employee development.
The first thing it can do for less experienced employees is giving them an idea of the financial impact of managerial decisions. You do not have to give employees the power to decide the company’s future, but you can provide them with a budget for minor tasks where you will not ask questions. Some employees can take charge and communicate with other employees to see what would satisfy everybody.
Knowing your employee’s strengths can help remove the guesswork and help you select the right people for the right tasks!
Company trips
One way to encourage employees to develop is to take them on a company trip. A company leader may organise team games that encourage employees to work together and communicate. It can also be an opportunity for employees to let off some steam and get to know other employees better.
Similarly, if you take them to a convention in your industry, you can see what your employees are made of. Some employees can thrive best when they are out of their typical environment.
About 34% of all employees can have some of their most creative business ideas on a business trip. This number goes up to 53% when dealing with employees 24 and under. This can be because employees are more relaxed being out of the office and more stimulated with all the action going on around them. This can put employees in a positive mental space because 83% of employees see business travel as a company perk.
So, think about taking advantage of this idea with employees you want to see more out of.
Guest speakers
Finally, consider inviting a guest speaker to come in and talk to your employees if you think they need motivation. Sometimes, getting a fresh perspective into the mix is just good. It does not hurt if that person has charisma and an inspirational story they can share with their employees.
You would be surprised how many people use guest speakers to motivate the people that work for them. Even sports teams that face elimination in their seasons may have a guest speaker, such as an army veteran, come in and tell them about a war story that made them defy the odds.
So, you could use this to spark your employees and get them out of a slump.
Consider development programs
These are some ways you can use development programs to boost productivity and performance from employees in your business.
The key is figuring out what works for your employees is to get to know their individual strengths.
Book a demo with us to learn more about Strengthscope and how you can instantly amplify your employee development programs by adopting our approach.
