A few years ago, I was invited by the Center for Management Development, to deliver a one hour lecture based on a management research paper I’d just written titled “Self-Development As A Tool For Achieving Career Advancement“.

In delivering that paper, I decided to look at the subject from both perspectives i.e. that of the employer, as well as the employee’s. It’s always the best way, because both parties must work together to take the company forward. This article is based on excerpts from that lecture.

What follows below, are 5 Proven Steps You Can Take To Develop A Perfect Employee Workforce.

1. Demonstrate Management Buy-In

This is a fundamental requirement. Aim to demonstrate at all times to all parties involved that you (i.e. management or decision makers) are unflinchingly committed to helping employees develop their capacities optimally, in order to meet the company’s workplace performance expectations. In other words, you must back your words with action. Or better still, walk your talk.

For instance, let’s say you demand that sales reports be e-mailed in by field officers country wide over the weekend, for use in generating weekly reports for the 11a.m Monday review meetings. If some sales personnel work in locations with unreliable Internet access, you will need to arrange viable alternatives (e.g. a mobile wireless internet enabled laptop). Without this, reports are likely to come in late…and your employees could get discouraged or even frustrated. The same reasoning applies to asking factory workers to improve weekly output, without resolving a long standing problem of late input delivery by suppliers.

Do not give your employees any reason to believe you do not mean what you say.

Challenge them by showing you are committed to doing whatever it takes to support them towards achieving the goal you have announced. There’s however no need to go on a spending spree to make this happen. Simply assess viable options for making your plans work, then explore ways to implement them, as cost-effectively as possible. About eighty percent of the time, there will be a lower cost way to get things done, than the first ones that come to mind. Do more thinking, questioning and searching, to get it. Once everything is in place, let employees see that it is, and make you rules about non-performance clear to all concerned.

With management buy-in established and demonstrated, the next steps outlined below, should be easy to implement.

2. Focus On In-House Training

Too many times business decision makers feel they only need to throw money at employee training and development, to improve workplace performance. The truth however is that human beings are simply too complex to be treated like machines. With people, input does not always result directly in the output you want. And that’s why personalized (experiential) learning in a familiar environment tends to work better for us.

Why send another group of employees out to attend a training course, when a competent, experienced employee who has already been on THAT course (and has shown evidence of using what s/he learnt to improve job performance) is available?

Apart from being familiar with the peculiarities of the working environment of her colleagues, such an employee would also be able to develop case studies by drawing from her personal experiences. She could use such case studies in giving illustrations, which the others would possibly be able to relate to, making the learning experience more real.

Project based in-house employee training could also be considered. In this case, a group of employees could be made to learn by working together in multidisciplinary teams on meaningful problems drawn from their working environment. This kind of approach produces a self-help, mutual leaning atmosphere that enables the organization to identify and utilize “trapped” pockets of “experience and wisdom”.

Years ago, the above approach afforded me a very rapid rise from the lower cadres into senior management roles in a large corporate multinational, in less than 7 years of joining the company. The company’s decision makers were smart enough to see that I made good use of any learning I was exposed to. So they repeatedly chose me to go on high profile secondment assignments (e.g acting as departmental head, and also working as a member of key project groups comprising senior executives – even though I was not one). I was also nominated to attend key learning events, in and out of the country, with a view to subsequently returning to conduct similar learning events for other employees. The benefits to the company were multi-faceted.

Apart from my personal experiences, verifiable studies have equally shown that in-house training delivers more value for the money invested – in many cases. There will of course always be exceptions. However if your company really wants to move ahead in this regard, you will find it useful to follow the guidelines offered above.

3. Entrench A Reading/Thinking Culture

A good library, well stocked with relevant books, magazines etc all loaded with up-to-date information, will not get visited if employees are not made aware of its existence. In addition, employees must be encouraged to invest in useful (“How To”) books and do it yourself tools (e.g. Typing Tutor CDs, audio books, e-books, pod casts, webinars, teleconferences, membership websites etc).

Managers, executives and other leaders who are in a position to influence, should themselves set the example by adopting healthy reading/thinking, learning and re-learning habits. They could for instance, take time to stimulate the thoughts and interests of their reports by sharing insights they get from their own learning. Before long the culture will spread across the organization as a whole with very noticeable benefits.

There is of course the need to strike a balance between reading, and reflection on what is read – as captured in the quotes below:

“Reading can be a powerful catalyst for thinking; it has the potential for stimulating wisdom.” – Michael Angier

“Reading without thinking gives a disorderly mind, and thinking without reading makes one unbalanced” – Confucius

4. Deliberately Use Job Secondments For Employee Development

Secondment of employees to higher or parallel positions to the one they are already familiar with, could be utilized to develop them. The organization will however have to make EACH employee realize that going on secondment is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.

In other words, let them know that going on secondment is meant to be a developmental move for them. What’s more, upon completion of the acting assignment, the boss to whom the seconded employee reports needs to challenge her to outline what learning she has picked up. It is infact advisable that every such employee, be made to take a short break (could be a day or two) to reflect on her experiences and submit a written report upon returning to work.

Nothing helps to cement learning acquired from experience better than a review via personal reflection. During this activity, all actions carried out during secondment are “re-visited”, and decisions reached by the employee on how she would behave when confronted with similar challenges in future.

Successful employees interviewed by researchers often mentioned their on-the-job experiences – both good and bad – as having the greatest impact on their development. This is very useful information, that has guided smart business decision makers to continually explore better ways to provide job-based developmental experiences for their employees. By implication therefore, organizations that truly want “ideal” employees (i.e a well-motivated, effective and efficient workforce) will need to systematically expose individual members of their workforce(s) to relevant job-based experiences.

5. Institutionalize “Experience Sharing” By Older Employees With Newer Entrants

In this final step, the key objective is to shorten the learning curve of new (or less experienced) employees. It is a highly effective strategy that’s been in use for years (in various forms) by successful organizations the world over.

Consider this analogy: For those of who had the opportunity of growing up with aged parents, grandparents or relatives, the value of life learnings picked up from these older people, who had experienced them, often remains immeasurable. The foregoing is why one such young person can get described as having an “old head on his/her young shoulders”.

There’s no sense in letting younger/less experienced persons go through the painful process of making all the same mistakes and traumatizing discoveries that older/experienced employees already know how to avoid. Parents who spend time/share their own learning with their children actually spare the latter the pains of finding out those same things the hard way i.e. by themselves.

To put it another way, why should we waste valuable time re-inventing the wheel?

Relating this to the workplace, your company’s employees could benefit more if you engage a competent workplace/career coach(or even a retired, but highly skilled ex-employee) to spend time with them as individuals and/or groups – sharing experiences, and helping them make more sense of them. We need to enable our organizations to rise beyond our current levels of achievement, by equipping those coming after us with knowledge/skills we have gained.

A few hours with an accomplished individual can dramatically enhance the ability of the exposed employee(s) to perform better at work, to meet the company’s expectations. You will spend less and get more long lasting benefits to your people using this approach, than if you simply sent them on a generic external training course. (Fill/submit this form, and a free PDF copy of my 47 page management research paper titled “Self-Development As A Tool For Achieving Career Advancement“, which offers more information on this subject, will be sent to your inbox).

Summary

In today’s rapidly changing world, organizational decision makers must realize that if they want sustainable improvements in employee productivity, it WILL NOT happen through repeated resort to salary increases or even promotions.

Instead, getting employees to willingly give their best efforts at work, can only be reliably done by setting up a self-sustaining environment that perpetually makes the employee feel good about doing his/her job. The 5 steps outlined above, if intelligently adapted, can help you achieve that goal.

Make Your Comments or Requests!

What are your thoughts about the steps outlined in this post? Have you any experiences or observations to share on how well they might work in different organizations? Can you share any steps you believe can help a company effectively develop its employees to perform satisfactorily on the job? If you have a topic in mind you’d like me to write about in future, why not let me know? Or maybe you need help getting your staff to deliver(?). I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below, or via tayo at tksola dot com!

About Tayo Solagbade

Self-Development/Performance Enhancement Specialist – Tayo Solagbade– works as a Multipreneur, helping individuals/businesses develop and implement strategies to achieve their goals, faster and more profitably.

Depending on his availability, Tayo accepts invitations to deliver customisable talks, keynote speeches and training/coaching programs on topics relating to his areas of experience based expertise and interest. Visit http://www.tksola.com to learn how you can invite Tayo, to speak at your next meeting/event.

As a multipreneurial freelance writer, Tayo Solagbade’s versatility, and use of in-depth research (on and off the Internet), equip him to quickly produce 100% original – and easy to understand – write-ups. When he’s not amazing clients with his superhuman writing skills (wink), Tayo works as the creative force behind:

a). The Self-Development Nuggets blog:

www.serenediary.spontaneousdevelopment.com

b). The Public Speaking IDEAS blog:

www.spontaneousdevelopment.com/blog