Since employees are your company’s backbone, fostering people’s development in the workplace should be a priority. If you don’t develop your employees to their full potential, your company won’t be able to reach its highest potential.

What Is People Development?

People development is when your employees get the ability to gain the knowledge, skills, and drive to reach the goals they have for their careers. You may hear people development referred to as employee development, but they aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Employee development focuses on moving employees up to higher positions in the company. In contrast, people development focuses on developing skills that can be broader than just position-specific skills. It’s the strategy of developing people to become better in any employment setting.

The main difference here is that people development focuses on what each individual team member wants to achieve in their career. The development opportunities given to employees can vary based on the field or position they are eyeing long-term. Employee development is often a more general approach instead of laser-focused on each person.

People Development

Benefits of People Development

There are many benefits when you’re developing the people in your company in specific and useful ways! Some of the most common perks companies see include:

  • Increased productivity
  • More talent applying
  • Lower turnover rate

How Managers Can Affect Development

How you manage your team can make or break your employees. It’s a common saying that people leave managers, not jobs. This means that people will stay in their jobs if they’re happy with their manager and feel they’re being adequately developed.

Not having enough development opportunities is one of the top reasons employees leave a company. Therefore, focusing on people development is a priority, not a choice, to improve your team’s retention.

Of course, not every member of your team responds to development in the same way. To figure out how your people want to receive development, you’ll need to talk to them about their career goals. These conversations should happen regularly and with employees of all levels.

When you have these conversations, ask about each employee’s dream position in the company. This information can help you better determine the type of development they need to reach their goals. Too often, managers focus on a blanket people development approach instead of adjusting it to meet individual goals.

Not every employee wants to reach the company’s top, and that’s okay. Some entry-level employees may want to move to the financing department or marketing. These departments require different skills, so you should mentor each team member accordingly.

Of course, you may end up with mid or upper-level employees who say they’re in the position they want. If that’s the case, you can help them reach their fullest potential in their current position. However, don’t be afraid to check in with them about their goals occasionally because they may decide they want to move up later.

Helping Your People: Things To Remember

As the leader of your team, your biggest priority should be helping every member of your team develop and learn new skills regularly. Here are some tips for doing this to the best of your ability!

Make Learning a Long-Term Priority

Your employees must stay current on every change that occurs in the workplace. With how quickly technology changes, skillsets are likely to change almost as quickly.

With this in mind, you should ensure that all of your people get development opportunities regularly. This can help prevent more experienced employees from falling behind due to a lack of learning.

Remember that no one ever knows everything there is to know about their position. Foster an environment of continuous learning by setting the example yourself. When there are tech changes at work, you should sit in on the training with your employees. This can help them see how important it is.

Of course, don’t forget to focus on soft skills as well. It’s crucial to help your team stay fresh on their skills in areas like empathy, communication, and problem-solving. These skills can help your employees succeed in any position they hold. While you hope to keep them in your company forever, it’s wise to help them develop skills they can use in many career fields.

Remember That Every Role Is Vital

For a long time, the only goal in a company was to promote team members up the ladder to top management. There wasn’t anyone who was pointing out that not everyone should be or wants to be management. Forced promotions can lead to burnout and unskilled leaders, both harmful to the company.

It’s important to remember that just because an employee has the skill set to excel in their current position doesn’t mean that those skills will equate to excellent management. It’s also crucial to remember it’s okay if your top employee wouldn’t make a great manager.

For example, your top-performing employee may be that way because they excel at self-starting and strive to be the best on the team. However, due to their competitive tendencies, they may not be great at motivating the people around them or harboring a team environment.

This doesn’t make them useless employees. The skill set they show in their position is one that you should honor and celebrate for the help it brings the company! In situations like this, it’s best to sit down with the employee and see what their long-term goals are. This will allow you to create a personal plan to develop their skills.

Show Your Employees Their Importance

This is especially true for entry-level employees. It can be challenging for some employees to see how their position makes a difference for the company. When they don’t see value in their job, the morale and motivation to succeed aren’t there. People development is crucial at all levels, and it starts with people seeing their value where they are!

Take time to help your employees understand why you chose them for the position they’re currently in and the impact that they’ve been able to make already. You can learn about their goals and share relevant development opportunities from here.

Letting your employees know why they’re doing the tasks they have can make a huge difference in their motivation. You don’t want your employees thinking they aren’t essential just because they’re in an entry-level position. That’s why it’s crucial to make everyone see their worth; they also work on developing skills to move forward.

Development Options to Implement

Now that you know the importance of people development, it’s time to consider some ways to prioritize it!

Skills Gap Analysis

The first step to proper people development is determining where your employees stand. Performing a skills gap analysis will help you see where each of your employees has potentially fallen behind in necessary skill sets so you know where to begin in development.

Mentorship

Starting a mentoring program is a useful way for employees to make connections, learn new skills, and become more motivated to grow in the company. More than 70% of Fortune 500 companies have mentorship programs!

These programs have many perks in addition to the help they provide individual employees. Having a mentorship program can help your company, too! Companies with mentorship programs in place tend to see:

  • Higher retention rates
  • More productivity
  • Fewer skill gaps
  • Better culture

Online Options

You likely have employees who prefer self-paced development. Plus, the number of remote workers has risen dramatically over the last couple of years, so online options are even more important.

Consider implementing online development training courses when possible. Many training programs exist, so you’re likely to find one that will allow your employees to work on their skills online. While there are benefits to in-person training sessions, some people thrive better with independent skills training.

Takeaway

People development is crucial to shaping your company into what you want. The workplace is much different now than it used to be, so development should also look different.

When it comes to development, it’s best to focus on each employee’s goals and plans. This allows you to develop a personal development plan tailored to each employee. When employees feel they’re getting development options that are relevant to them, they’ll be more likely to stay motivated to complete them.

Development looks different for everyone, and that’s the beauty of it. As a manager, your biggest goal should be developing your team into successful people motivated to do their best and reach their goals!