At many of the companies where I work as a coach and advisor, I notice that employee development often unintentionally falls low on the priority list. Especially in the past year, when everyone was working from home a lot and people had many other priorities or care tasks besides work, it was even harder to do that well and on time. But why is it essential to invest time in it now?
1. Your best employees will be gone otherwise
The people who are going to be the most flexible, ambitious or capable are always the first to go. You may not have much turnover now, but as soon as the economy picks up, this is bound to happen if you haven’t taken good care of your people. And in branches where there are already labor shortages this will happen sooner. If you look at what motivates people (see research by Herzberg and others), the top 5 are not money or vacation days, but among others. developing your career and personal growth. Plus recognition and appreciation in your work environment.
What’s left behind if you don’t have an active development policy are, in part, the people who can’t afford to work elsewhere, are too afraid to make the switch, or wouldn’t find work elsewhere. Do you only want to focus on them? I know many entrepreneurs who are afraid to train people for fear that they’ll start their own business. I reassure them by quoting the very successful Richard Branson of the Virgin empire: “Train people well enough so they can leave, but treat them well enough so they don’t want to
2. It’s the bottleneck for your company to grow, professionalize, or otherwise improve
Whatever direction you want to take your organization, you are not going to get there without the right knowledge, attitude and skills of your employees. The world is changing, and as an organization you have to keep up. If you do not plan now how many people you will need in say, 3-5 years, in what kind of positions and with what kind of qualities or skills, you will be behind the times. Attracting new employees and training or developing your current employees simply takes time and is in some industries it is already almost impossible to get new but experienced or knowledgeable people.
Even to better set up your business in the shorter term, it is important to take a good look at who is in what place, what skills, knowledge or personality. This takes time and/or expertise. For example, I helped a client where there was a manager in a department with little authority or knowledge and lacked the trust of the team, while within the department itself there was a very experienced employee who already possessed the trust of the team and had the ambition to grow. There were a good number of complaints from the team to the organization that just weren’t resolved. The changing of the guard that followed after my advice has turned out to be totally positive (there is always a risk of someone being dissatisfied, so we could not have predicted that but reduced the risk by the right actions and right tone in the conversations), but the former department head now has other duties and is thriving in them, the experienced employee got a promotion and is very happy in his job plus the team is running better than ever.
3. It saves you money
Buying experienced people away from the competition every time is expensive and mainly results in people with less loyalty and motivation. If you put time and effort into a positive development policy now, it will pay for itself through fewer costs of recruitment, induction, early retirement, sick leave, etc. I worked for years at a company that had an Investors in People certificate and really rose with my career and skills. I begrudge everyone something like that.
I also worked at a company where my performance review took place at 11 PM in a Russian hotel bar, conducted by a boss who had quite a bit to drink. It’s not hard to imagine which employer I have the best memories of and where I worked the longest…
4. Even if you have no experience or limited budget, it’s still possible
Many management teams simply don’t have experience with this. How do you make the switch from performance reviews to genuine development discussions? How often should you do it, how do you keep track of what’s been agreed upon with each employee, and how do you ensure that what’s been agreed upon regarding training, mentorship, internships, new tasks, promotions, and more is followed through? That’s quite a task. We can help with our expertise.
To make this very affordable, there is 60-80% subsidy for this and this involves really good amounts, up to 25000 euros. At Brilliant Work we use several pots to finance this, ask us about the possibilities during a free intake interview.
Author: Lizanne Jakobs, founder of Brilliant Work. Voted best coaching and consulting firm in the Netherlands for SMEs in 2019 and 2020.
