5 Activities You Should Add To Your Employee Development Program
“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your Employees, they will take care of the clients.” - Sir Richard Branson
It’s simple – an organization is only as good as its employees. When it comes to IT skills training services, along with getting them external training, it is equally important that the employees get the fair share of required development from the company itself. Successful companies everywhere make sure that all their employees are not just hired for doing menial day to day tasks, but are challenged and trained to become better professionals.
For companies, coming up with employee development activities is essential to keep the employees in a learning mindset. As most people are looking for ways to gain experience, they prefer to work for organizations that give them a chance to grow, not just financially but professionally as well.
So how can an organization create activities that allow their employees to continue developing? Here are 5 activities that every organization should make their employees do for development:
1. Keeping Track Of Training Progress
As all organizations do, training your employees is a vital part for the proper development process of the employees, but are you doing it the right way? A very important part of the employee skills development plan should be the fact that you need to keep track of how much the employee has progressed.
This can be done through statistical analysis of the amount of work done by a person, but a better way to do it is by setting up meetings with your employees at the end of the week and discussing the amount of work they have done and how it has helped them progress. If you are using IT training services, you need to have access to tools that allow you to monitor employee progress.
2. Perform Spotchecks and Test
As much as everyone hates exams and test, they do serve a very important purpose, which is to help you understand how much someone has progressed. Testing your employees not only gives you a greater idea into how your employees are developing, but also gives an incentive for your employees to learn more about their work. Tests can be done in a lot of ways, you can administer a quiz which questions your employees’ skills, and based on this assessment, you can plan out how to further their training. There can even be spot checks, which are randomly administered to assess the employee, but don’t make them too frequent.
3. Reward The Employees Who Do Well
Giving out certificates to the employees is a good thing, but think about it, what does the employee really gain from a framed piece of paper except the fact that they can show it to the other workplace that they are applying at? Let’s go the extra mile when recognizing your employees. To really get your employees interested in bettering themselves, you can start rewarding the employees with a bonus at the end of the month, or it could be a social thing such as the company treating them to a movie or a dinner.
4. Daily Reports
Another way to keep a track of your employees and their progress is by introducing a daily report system where the manager who has assigned the work will compile the data at the end of the day and discuss the daily report data if needed. This sounds more like a project management tip, but test it out and see the wonders it will do for your employee development program.
5. Give Them An Incentive To Participate
Even though everyone wants to learn new things, some of the members of your team may not show as much interest in the employee development activities you have planned for them. To improve employee engagement and to get everyone to participate, you may need to give them some kind of an incentive to participate. You can go ahead and include their performance and participation in the training programs you have planned for them to their KPIs, or you can offer some kind of a reward.
Giving your team a chance to learn and grow will make them work harder, it will make some employees disappointed when their peer gets something more, but you have to make sure that the assessment is done fairly.
IT training services are also a good way to keep your employees sharp and up to date with the latest requirements to work in any organization. Start training your employees the right way and use these 5 activities to help them become a better part of the organization.