The Importance Of Supporting The Personal Development Of Your Workforce
Without a doubt one of the most important and effective things you can do to nurture and in turn retain talent within your business is to provide them with personal development opportunities and further to that, support them with it.
Personal development can encompass anything from new skill training to leadership and management development right through to pursuing a passion in or out of the workplace that adds to their wellbeing.
Like most things in life, personal development is not a one size fits all exercise, in fact time and time again we see personal development plans fail as consideration for individuality and tailoring isn't taken into consideration.
Suzanna Prout, Xenonex MD and Founder knows the importance of ensuring personal development plans are tailored.
‘The key is to offer a fully blended ‘pick and mix’solution - providing a suite of accredited and non accredited engaging learning materials for acquiring knowledge and self awareness; 1-1 personalised coaching for individual goal setting and progress review; 360 feedback to identify any blind spots; and active learning sets to share and learn about best practice from others.’
Forbes Coaches Council also shared some ways in which managers can show support, these were our favourites;
1. Build In 'Growth Time’
“Allow for employees to engage in personal development by allotting 10 percent of their time to personal or professional growth. The only rules: How they spend their time must be a stretch: something out of the box that has a benefit to the business, whether it's building a skill directly linked to their role or improving their leadership abilities”. - Lizabeth Czepiel, Lizabeth Czepiel, LLC
2. Think Beyond Traditional Training
“Go beyond the thinking that development has to happen through formal classroom training. Create a book club where employees can discuss the latest trends in your industry; provide 15-minute "lunch and learns" where employees teach each other a skill; or create a company Slack group for social learning. Make development easily accessible (and easier on the budget) through useful, informal methods.” - Loren Margolis, Training & Leadership Success LLC
3. Create A Culture Of Learning
“All development is the result of learning. To effectively support personal development on a regular basis, organizations should foster a "culture of learning." When a strong learning culture is embedded in the foundation of an organization, more employees see the importance of continuous learning. There are many mechanisms, tools and incentives organizations can institute, but start with culture.” - Eddie Turner, Eddie Turner LLC
We would love to know your thoughts on this, by all means let us know over on social media, you can find us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
If personal development is not on high on your to do list within your business and you want it to be, by all means get in touch with us and let’s discuss how we can work together katy.hebblewhite@xenonex.co.uk