As professionals continue to adapt to remote work culture, many have expressed their desire to learn more skills. The pandemic has given employees plenty of time to think about how they would like to hone their talents and abilities in the workplace.
As a leader, it's important to keep this spark for additional knowledge alive with some extra encouragement. To do this, 16 members of Forbes Human Resources Council share some strategies for helping employees develop their skill sets.
1. Establish A Learning-And-Development Team
Appoint a leader to establish an L&D team. Outsource an educational service or implement a technology platform that offers various courses focused on hard and soft skills. Incentivize employees by gamifying the learning process. Offer badges and certificates earners can display and then encourage them to put their new skills into practice through project-based work external to their usual jobs. - Tammy Harper, CAI
2. Encourage Experiences
Experience is one of the best ways to develop new skills. At Zenefits, we combined career development with experiential learning and made it a core part of managers' roles, to understand what an employee wants to learn or do and build a tailored plan with them—complete with milestones and accountability. Examples include stretch projects, mentoring others or skills to help in their next job. - Danny Speros , Zenefits
3. Form Support Groups
Companies must have learning support groups to encourage and help employees be better educated. Learning is a hyper-personalized activity, so the content should be democratized and available to all employees based on their needs. Additionally, well-crafted learning paths that are aligned to the company structure can help employees to grow faster. - Pradipta Banerjee, emids Technologies
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4. Leverage Digital Courses
Ongoing digital literacy courses can upgrade the skills of workers. It is essential that employees can navigate the digital world using reading, writing, technical skills and critical thinking. Technology is evolving, so employees must understand technology like a smartphone, personal computer and more, while working at home, to find, evaluate and communicate information in any workplace. - CJ Eason, Hired In Michigan Career Institute
5. Tap Into Online Resources
One result of the pandemic distancing standards has been a tremendous increase in the online learning options now available. Whereas a respectable percentage of vendors offered online options prior to the pandemic, now the majority do. Tapping into these resources for your staff by purchasing memberships to these platforms and making them available for staff development is key. - Rebecca Edwards, Infinite HR of Charlotte
6. Make Employees Feel Supported
Many organizations position skill development as employee-owned, yet employees still feel like their needs aren’t being met and many leave as a result. Employees are more likely to say their employer provides them with the development they need when they have their manager’s support. Provide managers with additional training and resources such as job aids outlining the development process. - Jennifer Rozon, McLean & Company
7. Showcase Understanding
A business must understand what its customers need and hence produce the most useful products or services. Similarly, managers must understand what their employees need to give them ideal learning opportunities. Asking questions and showing empathy is the best way to understand and create the best opportunities. - Soumyasanto Sen, People Conscience
8. Develop A Training Budget
Allow employees to have a training or personal development budget. This allows them to pick how they want to grow—seminars, webinars, certification programs and basically anything that can improve their knowledge and can also help the business. Their managers can work with them to determine the best course of action and HR can approve it to ensure it meets all company requirements. - Erin ImHof, Project Ares
9. Reward Employee Loyalty
Providing learning opportunities for employees shouldn't be perceived as preparing them to leave for their next job. While some will move on, team loyalty and company culture play a bigger role in minimizing turnover. Support employees' professional development by providing reimbursem*nt for training seminars or even giving them the chance to cross-train in lateral positions within the company. - Laura Spawn, Virtual Vocations, Inc.
10. Hold A Career Fair
Consider hosting an internal career fair. They give employees the chance to learn more about other departments and opportunities within them. It also gives employees a reason to build relationships across the company, which inspires cross-functional collaboration. It shows that your organization encourages internal mobility and wants employees to drive their own career path - Kim Pope, WilsonHCG
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11. Offer Reimbursem*nt Opportunities
Because talented employees will always have a desire to learn and grow, it’s essential that employers support this in order to retain top talent. Companies should offer educational reimbursem*nt for work-related training, courses and certifications. Employers that invest in employee education and development strengthen their workforce by incentivizing employees to build their knowledge and skills. - John Feldmann, Insperity
12. Cultivate Skills As A Team
Companies should take a collective intelligence approach to skills building. We are too focused on the individual skills of the employees but the real impact on a business unit’s productivity happens when the supervisor understands the team’s collective competence. People leaders should consider the sum of individual skills. What skills are missing to create a coherent and efficient group? - Léa Baltzinger, iHerb
13. Give Time Off
The greatest investment of an organization in showing their employees they’re committed to their growth is the gift of time. Organizations can assist employees in their pursuit of learning by providing reasonable time off work for training and seminars. Designing this commitment company wide is one way to build a culture of learning. - Nakisha Griffin, Ripple Effect
14. Compile Resources
There's no such thing as too much content. Consider making investments in "off-the-shelf" content libraries to provide diversity in the topics and skill areas that can be developed. Then, map your content to skills so you can identify where employees are showing interest. It's a wise decision to provide content that is relevant to both the personal and the professional needs of your employees. - Matthew Brown, Schoox
15. Implement A Skill-Sharing Plan
Businesses should implement a skill-sharing plan where employees have the platform to share expertise with colleagues. This could be in the form of regular presentations on chosen subjects or a catalog of materials on a shared drive, such as briefing documents or video guides, which allows workers to freely upskill. - Niki Jorgensen, Insperity
16. Provide Additional Opportunities
Internal secondments, or temporary opportunities for six to 12 months, to change roles internally, are a great way to expose your high-performers to stretch opportunities and skill refinement. This also encourages a renewed perspective on their permanent role after the secondment and increased creative thinking. - Caroline Faulds, Canada Pooch
