Developing and retaining people
Establish the organisation’s learning and development priorities
A Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is a structured approach to assessing what the current and future skills needs of the organisation are, and where any gaps lie. It can also help you consider a range of possible approaches to meeting the needs identified. Link to www.yourpeoplemanager.com
Recognise achievement and effort in development
Send a simple letter of congratulations or encouragement, or publish the names of people who have successful completed a course or development programme in an internal magazine/newsletter.
Find ways to delegate responsibility for training to individuals
Where people have a personal commitment to their own learning and development, their motivation and commitment is increased. Some organisations use flexible individual training budgets to bring this to life, offering people the freedom to choose from available development opportunities to meet their individually-agreed objectives.
Ensure managers and leaders take career planning seriously
In their formal communications and actions, and also in more informal discussions with their teams, ensure managers introduce issues of career planning, to demonstrate their commitment to the development of their team members.
Where the organisation operates across multiple sites or international locations, consider offering employees with high potential the chance to work somewhere else
The new challenges help to develop their skills, and the exciting opportunity is likely to be an incentive to remain with the organisation.
Introduce measures to identify employees with high potential
Look at current performance and use manager feedback or aptitude surveys to spot employees with real potential to excel. Monitor their progress, and consider offering extra coaching to develop them into leaders.
Benchmark your organisation’s skills with others of a similar size/sector
Identify skills gaps in your organisation, assess the causes and context in your industry and region, and learn from the development approaches others have used.
Look beyond the training feedback form, to evaluate the longer term impact of newly-acquired skills
As well as evaluating the immediate perceptions that trainees have of a course or development programme, monitor how they apply the skills they develop, and follow-up after a period of time to assess the impact that the development has had on their actual performance.
Ensure your evaluation of development activities includes a variety of measures
As well as gauging immediate reaction, ensure evaluation includes the impact on skills and attitudes, how effectively these have been applied, and the impact on performance.
Explore the different learning styles that people have in your organisation
Tools such as learning styles questionnaires can be used to identify an individual’s predominant learning style in order to shape their development activities to their preferred format
Ensure people and managers deal with honest mistakes constructively as learning experiences
Mistakes happen in every organisation, and provide a valuable learning opportunity. People should be encouraged to offer constructive feedback, focus on how performance can be improved in the future, and avoid defensiveness or purely personal criticism.