The secret of employee development

A few generations ago, you could do with your knowledge for a very long time. It took years for things to become obsolete. Now knowledge has become much more volatile. For both organizations and employees, it is important to be aware of this and to pay enough attention to employee development. Because if you don't keep your professional knowledge up to date, you will fall behind.

The importance of development

If employees do not keep up with their craft, they will soon fall behind. This will also have effects within the organization. If they do not invest in employee development, they risk being overtaken by the competition. If an organization wants to stay afloat, it will have to employ people who understand their craft and are willing to invest in keeping it current.

In addition to having to keep up, employees must have different skills than in the past. Many tasks have been or are being automated. Think of factory work or administrative operations. Organizations are now mainly looking for people who can solve problems, work well together and think creatively. In short, people who possess the so-called 21st century skills.

Encouraging development

But as an organization, how do you ensure that your employees continue to develop? Learning is not an end in itself. It is about facilitating your employees in what they need to do their jobs well. And giving them the opportunity to keep getting better at it. This includes offering your employees access to relevant knowledge, but also encouraging professional exchange between colleagues and giving them the opportunity to follow their own learning path. Do this for example with the online learning platform from SkillsTown.

Enthuse employees

Learning is an annoying word for some people. To them, it sounds like something that is mandatory and not fun to do. You can show these people that learning can also be fun. Offer low-threshold forms of learning, such as micro-learnings. Let them know that there are certificates to be earned that they can share on LinkedIn. Or entice your employees to share their own expertise by having them make their own videos or give demonstrations, for example. That way you include them in the process.

Keep communicating

It is important to keep employee development under constant attention. Therefore, communicate regularly about the opportunities your organization offers. Do you use an online learning platform? Then make sure it is always in the spotlight:

• Refer to the platform in your internal newsletters.
• Employ a quarterly quarterly theme. On the online learning platform, highlight the courses that deal with this topic and work on them together.
• In classroom courses, use an online module to support them certain topics in work consultation. Or refer them to online modules for deeper learning.

Start small

Setting up your academy or training plan can safely start small. Ask yourself what resources or knowledge you already have and how you can incorporate them into your learning platform. What can you easily accomplish? What things are important and do you want to have ready first? After that, keep improving, ask how people like it and adjust your employee development policy accordingly.

Just make sure you have a sharp picture in advance of how you want people to perform. What must they be able to do, know and do in order to do a good job. Formulate those goals for yourself so you can check in retrospect whether you have achieved what you wanted to achieve.

Getting started with employee development in your organization?

Does your organization want to get started with employee development? We will gladly tell you more about the possibilities of an online learning environment of SkillsTown during a no-obligation (online) demonstration.