Investing in your Business and your People.
Helping your people learn and sharing skillsets only makes your business stronger. Learning and development doesn’t have to be expensive, or mean time off from business as usual. Picking up skills and knowledge through coaching and mentoring on the job can be just as effective than courses or qualifications. But it is important to note that no matter how you offer development it should create a culture that values learning, for example you may want to align your employee learning with your business goals, or you may want to implement a skills development policy or plan, however you achieve investing in your people you will need to pay attention to how people prefer to learn and to make sure that you develop opportunities all ages, backgrounds and experiences.
Ways to do it
A coaching mindset
Day-to-day work is full of opportunities to learn. Focus on the positive. Ask people why they think something worked or didn’t. Show team members how to give constructive feedback and coach colleagues in their areas they’re good at, eg customer service, a piece of software or equipment. Sharing knowledge can help all experience levels and age groups feel valued.
Tell stories
It’s how we have passed on knowledge since the beginning of time. Encourage it informally, eg during breaks, while tidying up, or closing down for the day. Share your experiences — a narrowly dodged problem, a project you’re proud of and why. Tap into what long-standing team members know. Equally, learn from your new people who can bring new ideas.
Make it OK to get things wrong
Mistakes — ours and others’ — are rich in learning. Learning from real life, familiar experiences from your business can be easier to relate to than hypothetical situations from workshops or courses.
Solve problems together
Team up to find solutions and new ideas. Staff will learn by observing different thought processes and hearing others’ experiences. It can strengthen working relationships. Plus mixing different viewpoints, eg older and younger, customer facing and behind the scenes, often leads to stronger ideas.
Job shadowing
This can be useful for people keen to grow into another role. Or when employees would benefit from understanding what’s involved in another job or task — for an example, check out the job shadow case study on this page.
Buddy system
Pair people of different ages and experiences, eg an employee experienced in delegating and challenging ideas with a less experienced, less assertive member of staff. When teaming people, be clear what you want each person to get out of it. Pay careful attention to personality types — avoid pairing people who might clash or annoy each other.
Involve employees
Talk about learning and feedback openly and often. A team talk is a good option, but also give people a chance to speak just with you or a trusted colleague. Take time to answer questions, give and receive feedback and discuss learning goals.
How to communicate and give feedback
Case study
Job shadow pays off
Nico’s top bricklayer Reece is starting to feel the effects of 40 years in the trade — his back aches constantly. Reece worries about doing permanent damage. Nico doesn’t want to lose such a valued employee. Reece has been the heart and soul of his building firm. The knowledge he holds is invaluable.
Dana, a competent administrator and bookkeeper in her 20s, works in the office. She’s been with the business for two years and wants to take on more responsibility. Nico senses Dana is bored. He worries she may also leave.
For training on common topics, eg health and safety, consider splitting costs with other local businesses.
Formal training
Sometimes outside expertise is needed to upskill employees.
Options include:
- Online courses and webinars — a cost-effective way to introduce new ideas and approaches. Useful when you need to train staff across different locations.
- Off-the-shelf training courses — one-size-fits-all courses run by training companies.
- Tailored training — a trainer adapts a course to suit your business needs.
- Conferences, seminars and workshops.
- Courses run by polytechnics or other tertiary education providers.
- Literacy training — government-funded courses to help with reading, numeracy and communication.
Create a policy and plan
Having something in writing shows employees you are committed to their development. It helps people understand what’s available, what’s expected, and how they will be supported.
It’s important staff know about your policy or plan. Be sure it’s put into practice — don’t just write one and file it away.
Your learning and development policy might include:
- types of learning you encourage, eg job shadowing, mentoring, diplomas, webinars, workshops
- how to apply or flag something is wanted or needed
- how you will support employees to learn and use new skills and knowledge
- how any costs /time off work will be handled
- how learning should tie to people’s roles, eg build existing skills, help people stretch into new areas
- expectations on how knowledge will be shared with the team.
Equal opportunities
Be fair when deciding who gets learning opportunities, especially if it’s to prepare someone for a new role or to handle poor performance. Offer the same stretch and learning opportunities to new employees and current employees who move into new roles.
Check if stereotypes affect your decisions. Do you develop workers of all ages? Or, for example, do you mainly train people who are starting out?
The Human Rights Act says you can’t make employment decisions based on age, race, gender or other personal characteristics. All employees benefit from continuing to learn, regardless of age, background and experience.
Clear criteria, fair decisions
How people learn
As people’s personalities differ, so do their learning preferences. Ask your employees how they best take in and retain information. Common styles include:
- learning by doing
- looking at infographics or watching videos
- preferring to hear new information
- reading instructions or background info, and writing notes
- getting information in chunks over time.
Few people learn effectively from being presented to, without the chance to ask questions. It might save you time in the short term, but will likely take longer to get everyone on board and up to speed.
Be prepared for questions — this is to allow time for problem-solving and drawing on past knowledge and experience.
It’s a good idea to use real situations to help people learn new skills, systems or knowledge. Encourage your employees to share examples from their work, eg a common task or a customer’s unusual request. Explore together how to solve problems or complete tasks.
Gently check in to see how confident employees feel with new information or skills. People can be embarrassed to admit they haven’t grasped something. For example, an older worker may not want to admit they don’t understand a piece of software, thinking it’s down to their age, when it’s not. A younger worker may be sheepish about finding the same software tricky, thinking a ‘digital native’ should find it easy.
Avoid common mistakes
- Assuming learning just means formal courses and qualifications — learning on the job can be just as valuable.
- Thinking time off billable work will be bad for business — helping your people learn, and share their skills with each other, will make everyone’s job easier.
- Only investing in people early in their career — people of all ages and life stages benefit from ongoing learning.
- Not letting your people have a say in what they learn — encourage employees to help identify any skill gaps or offer up their expertise to others.
- Not letting employees have a say in how they prefer to learn — people pick up information in different ways. Few people learn by being talked at.
- Believing learning is only about employees getting better at their jobs — offering a variety of stretch opportunities makes you a desirable employer. It can help you keep hold of valued workers and attract strong candidates when hiring.
