Employee Training Tips for 2020

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Employee Training|Employee Training Tips for 2020Employee training in many different industries follows a similar pattern. There’s book learning – we give our employees handbooks or guides so that they can read more about their jobs and learn more about our companies. And shadowing – new employees buddy up with a more experienced member of staff, or trainer, to learn on the job, watching, copying and learning from other members of your team. There’s no doubt that these methods are effective. We do learn from reading and copying other people. But, they aren’t the only ways to learn.

Offering your staff a more extensive range of training can help them to improve. More instruction can help new employees to settle, and older members of the team stay on top of their game. If you are looking to boost performance in 2020, some of these training tips and ideas could help.

Microlearning

Often, the problem is that we try to learn too much, too quickly. We struggle to take it all in. We overwhelm our minds. Many managers are guilty or overwhelming employees with new processes or information that they need to learn, and we often give them a relatively short amount of time to do it.

Microlearning can be much more effective. Give people small amounts of information, and give them the time to process it, before moving on. Spend time teaching in small chunks, utilizing coaching, testing and other teaching methods, and breaking everything down as much as possible.

Keeping lessons and training sessions short can also increase information retention. Nowadays, we have very short attention spans. We’re used to scrolling through social media feeds, reading very short statements and watching micro video clips. We’ve gotten used to accessing information in this way, and so our brains struggle to cope with more.

Lose the Dull Team Meetings

Team meetings can seem like an effective way to give all of your employees the same information in one go. It can seem as though this would save you time. But the majority of team meetings are exceptionally dull, and the majority of staff hate them. So, lose them. Have short daily briefings and one on one training sessions instead. If you do need a team meeting, keep it short, and try to make it fun.

Play Some Games

Sometimes, people forget things. Often, simple things. They just slip out of our minds. You might even find that many members of your team forget the same things. Creating games like bingo or puzzles with a crossword puzzle maker can help them to remember. Simple games like this can boost memory and increase knowledge retention.

Keep it Personal

Everyone learns differently. Getting to know your staff members, and learning more about how they work can help you to offer personalized training.

Create Training for Personal Time

More of us than ever are working from home, or on the move. Your team members might be reading training manuals on the train, and not at a desk. Tailor your training to suit this. Record podcasts that they can easily listen to on their commute, or film short videos that they can easily watch on their phones.

How To Create A Productive Office

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StrategyDriven Talent Management ArticleSometimes it’s hard to stay focused when you’re at work, especially if you’re inside a stifling office space on a warm day. Of course, you’d always rather be somewhere else than at work, but what you can do is make your working environment more appealing, more fun, and a productive place to be. If you’re an office manager and you’re considering making changes to the place in order to boost productivity, then your first port of call should be to ask your staff members. Once you’ve got a good idea of what needs changing, and you’ve assessed the suggestions, you can then get to work.

Refurbish

If your office space is looking outdated and is showing signs of wear and tear, then now is the time to consider a complete refurbishment. As long as your budget permits it, gut the entire office in favor of new flooring, freshly painted walls throughout, new and improved desks and chairs, and a reworking of the oppressive overhead lights. Pile the accumulated waste into a dumpster provided by a Dumpster rental Phoenix, so that it can be disposed of responsibly. Clean out your office and strip it back to basics to rebuild an attractive and productive environment.

Encourage Socialization

When it comes to decorating, try and create communal spaces that encourage your team to talk to each other and build relationships. When designing the staffroom, opt for large long couches so that the team has to be convivial and sit next to one another. Prepare group work, and ask that small teams work together to create a final result. Praise the teams for their effort and consideration of others.

Improve Air Quality

Without proper air ventilation, it’s very easy to become unfocused, tired, and to overheat – all of which aren’t going to help your team in trying to be as productive as possible. So, install new ventilation units if the current ones are somewhat lackluster, and keep plants in every available space throughout the premises. After all, not many people object to flowers, fresh greens, and other plants that keep the air clean. Having said this, always makes sure to ask about allergies before adding foliage around the office.

Offer Tea And Coffee

If you work in an office, you’ll understand the importance of caffeinated beverages to power you through the morning. Recognize that your team work hard to achieve their targets and reach their goals, so help them along the way and offer free coffee and tea whenever they might be in need of a pick-me-up. Create an inclusive, friendly environment for your employees, and you might just find that productivity increases tenfold.

Have An Open Door Policy

Your employees need to know that they can approach you whenever they need to discuss something. So, with this in mind, consider operating an open door policy whereby you’re on hand whenever the need arises. Tell your staff that you care about their welfare, their opinion, and possible suggestions about how the office is run and how the company performs. If your team know that you’re there to offer assistance and help them, then they should feel more relaxed, understood, and willing to work hard.

Investing in Your Employees: 4 Ways To Attract and Keep Hold of Top Talent

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Attracting Talent|Investing in Your Employees: 4 Ways To Attract and Keep Hold of Top TalentSecuring top talent is undeniably essential to the long-term success of any business.

But certain high-level professional skills are in incredibly high demand. There are so many roles to fill, that those who have proven their ability can afford to be picky, and to move on if they aren’t satisfied with the position.

So now the job market swings so heavily in favour of these candidates, how can you attract them to join your enterprise, and convince them to stay for the long haul? If you’re looking for some pointers, check out the list below.

Know Your Value

Highly-trained candidates with specialist skills will have many employment options. So your recruitment process needs to be as much about communicating the value and potential of your business, as it is about assessing their suitability for the role.

What are the wider repercussions of the work you do? What are you proud of having achieved? And what are you striving for in the future?

Your employees want to feel that they will contribute significantly to something progressive and exciting. Make it clear how they will fit in, how their skills will move the business forward, and how they can become part of something impactful.

Invest in your promotional material – your website, careers pages, videos, and personal communication from your team – to spread this message loud and clear.

More Than Just A Job

A long-term career is more than just a job. It’s a personal investment that touches every aspect of your life. And potential candidates will want to know that your business puts time and effort into developing a healthy work-life balance.

Can you offer more flexible working hours? Can you give the option to work at home when needed? How does your business support parents, or those will disabilities? Do you provide meals, activities, or mental health initiatives for employees?

Think about what is going to be important to the contentment of your employees outside of the role and the salary. Because family, health and happiness will play a bigger role in their decision than just about anything else.

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Attracting Talent|Investing in Your Employees: 4 Ways To Attract and Keep Hold of Top TalentInvest in Their Professional Development

Smart, ambitious people will get restless in a job that doesn’t challenge them or lead somewhere exciting. And when they feel like they’re stagnating or heading towards a dead-end, your employees will simply look for employment opportunities elsewhere.

So it’s important to discuss the professional development goals of your employees and plan regularly how to facilitate them. This might include gaining experiences in other roles, learning new skills through outside IT Training, or training for management or leadership positions.

Wherever they want to go, you should do your best to help them progress. Because a sense of purpose comes hand in hand with loyalty and motivation.

The Social Side

One of the biggest factors in job satisfaction is having good friendships with your colleagues. So working hard to foster the social side of your business is absolutely essential.

Take the time to introduce new employees to the team and try using a buddy system to make sure they feel supported from day one.

Invest in social events and team building exercises and give people the chance to get to know each other outside of work.

And if you have a great social environment already, let potential candidates know this! Show them around the office and give them a sense of how much fun it would be to work here. Because if they feel like they’ll fit right in, they’ll pick you over your competitors.

Improving Employee Efficiency

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Employee Productivity|Improving Employee EfficiencyIf you are able to save time in the office, then it can be something that can be really beneficial to your business and to your employees. These days, employees are spending more time at the office, and in many instances, are exceeding the typical hours that should be worked in a working week. However, simply working more hours isn’t something that is going to make much of a difference, as productivity can be lost over time. If the team is tired, asking them to keep working more than they should won’t be a good thing to do. So how can you as a leader in business help to improve the productivity of your employees, while still doing things to save time? Here are some of the top things to be thinking about.

Delegate

While this tip can seem like something that is obvious, it can be hard for some leaders to delegate and share the load. Your business is going to be your baby, and you’ll want to be in control of it. There is nothing wrong with checking on how something is going, or what the finished product looks like. But if it means you are wasting your time to check every small detail, then it can be detrimental to you, as well as the team of people you are working with. So instead, look to give responsibilities to the qualified employees, and then you just have to trust that they will perform the tasks. This helps the team to grow, as well as feel needed in the business, and can let you get on with other things, being more productive overall.

Train and Develop Employees

If you want to reduce training, or even stop it altogether, it can seem like you will save money as well as time. Although people can learn on the job, it can actually backfire, as learning on the job can be quite inefficient for some. So one thing to do, that will help productivity in the long run, is to take a day to train them in something, and carry on doing this from time to time, to show they are valued and that you want to keep them improving their skills.

You can get people in to train them, though, with a corporate training platform, you could also perform the training yourself. Offer some continued employee development and help them expand their skills. It will be what helps your business to grow and grow. You could also offer some specific courses or things like mentoring, if they are ultimately looking to achieve something specific. Additionally, bringing in an external keynote speaker or facilitator can re-energize your team and deliver high-impact leadership frameworks that improve focus, precision, and performance under pressure.

Embrace Telecommuting

If your business is one where just a laptop and a phone are all that is needed, then encourage and allow your team to work from home from time to time. You might think that they won’t get much done from home, however, the reality will be the opposite. Working from home can be much more productive, as they won’t gossip with colleagues, go to the coffee machine, or take a full lunch like they might when working in a city. Plus, you have the option to keep productivity high for your business. For example, an employee with a cold might feel a little rough to come in, though they are still able to function. Instead of them calling in sick, they can work from home, as that will be easier for them to do when they aren’t feeling completely at their based. In bed checking emails and getting things done, will be better for the business than that person doing nothing that day.

Ways To Create A Harmonious Workplace

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | Ways To Create A Harmonious Workplace

Nobody wants to come to work to be unhappy. More importantly, when you consider how much time your employees actually spend in the workplace, you can appreciate the need to need for your team to be happy at work. An unhappy and stressful work environment can have a very real impact on the mental health of your employees. As a business leader, you have a duty of care to ensure that the health and happiness of your team are maintained at a high standard.

From a business point of view, creating a happy workplace means that you will have a more productive team. There will be less sickness due to stress, and your team will work together in a more effective manner.

But, how do you prevent internal conflict and problems that stem from the way that the company is managed? Here are some ways that you can create a harmonious workplace.

Get Outside Help

If there are signs of any conflicts within the workplace, or the way that you are running the company seems to be bringing about stress and unhappiness, then this could end up being quite costly.

Seeking external help will mean that you get an outsider’s point of view. And a company that deals in dispute resolution and litigation solutions will be able to provide operational support and advice from a legal standpoint.

Have Policies In Place To Protect The Team

Many insecurities and stresses in the workplace stem from concerns over the fact that there are no policies that allow the team to feel secure. By making sure that all of their rights are taken into consideration in their contract and in the company policies and procedures will ensure that they feel secure and protected.

Foster A Policy Of Open Communication

Your employees have a right to know as much as possible about their workplace. Of course, there will be matters that they don’t need to know. However, if there are changes that may occur, consulting with your team and being open about them well ahead of their implementation will provide the time for any adjustments.

Be sure that you have an open-door policy, where you are approachable and free to answer any questions or deal with any concerns that your employees may evert have.

Encourage Your Team To Celebrate Each Other’s Successes

Success is something that should always be celebrated. You need to make sure that you create a workplace where this is standard practice.

As habits and behaviors are learned parrot fashion, you need to lead by example. Find the time each week to point out the success of the team, but also to highlight different personal successes. Don’t just focus on the same people each week though, and try and demonstrate a variety of skills and successes to celebrate.

A great way of encouraging your team to share in each other’s success is to create a noticeboard where they can leave positive thoughts about other members of the team. A ‘motivation station’ is great for building morale and making sure everyone feels part of the team.