Lean Tip #2956 – Establish a Regular Training
Schedule
Make it easy for employees to set aside time in
their schedules for professional development by establishing a regular time for
training sessions. For example, make “Training on Tuesdays” a regular thing,
with different types of training happening each week of the month. Skill
training could be slated for the first week, leadership development could
happen in the second week, with other types of development activities scheduled
for the other weeks. This way, employees can easily plan ahead for development
opportunities.
Lean Tip #2957 – Source Training Topics from
Employees
Try asking employees to suggest learning and
development topics that they feel would be beneficial. Team members are much
more likely to participate in development opportunities if they’re invested and
have some input around what is offered. Plus, you’ll likely get some creative
ideas that you might not have thought of on your own. Your development program
is only posed to grow stronger when employees are invited to share their
suggestions.
Lean Tip #2958 – Support Knowledge Sharing
To encourage even deeper involvement, invite
employees who have specialized expertise to teach workshops or lead other types
of development opportunities. By encouraging knowledge sharing in this way,
you’ll help create a culture of peer-to-peer learning while meaningfully
recognizing employees who are willing to share their expertise with others.
These extra development efforts made outside of employees’ specific role
requirements can also be taken into consideration when the time for performance
reviews comes around.
Lean Tip #2959 – Endorse Joining Professional
Organizations
Employee development isn’t limited to just
courses and classes. Joining professional organizations specific to your company’s
industry or employees’ occupations can be a great way for employees to grow and
develop as professionals. Not only will they have an opportunity to meet and
develop relationships with like-minded professionals, but they’ll also learn
new skills while staying on top of new developments in their field. This can
serve as a clever way for your employees to network and help your company’s
outreach efforts.
Lean Tip #2960 – Be a Role Model via Active
Participation
If you're engaging in professional development
yourself, your employees will be more likely to do so as well. Be a role model
for your team by actively participating in learning opportunities yourself —
this could allow employee development to become the norm at your company. By
modeling this behavior, you’ll positively impact the perception of your company
as a learning organization in which professional development is valued at all
levels.
Lean Tip #2961 – Lead With Positivity
Too often workplaces devolve into competitive,
toxic environments. Remember, people are more likely to complain about
something than they are to praise. Putting positivity and gratitude first is
not a natural thing for most people to do, but it can radically transform
company culture. A compliment goes a long way in building relationships,
motivation, confidence and buy-in. This improves workplace dynamics and staff
retention.
Lean Tip #2962 – Focus on the Individual
There’s nothing worse than feeling like a cog
in a machine. With increasingly diverse workplace cultures, employees have
varied needs, priorities and motivations. Leaders need to identify large scale
tactics that don’t seem too generic or “catch all”. But before we can practice
inclusion, we must first understand what really matters. Run surveys, diverse
focus groups, and find out what’s important to your employees across various
career stages, generations, genders, backgrounds, ethnicities, and functions.
Enabling your employees to simply feel seen and heard is a crucial part of
successfully managing cultural change.
Lean Tip #2963 – Celebrate Small Wins
No doubt you already have a structured schedule
of employee 1:1s, annual reviews and formalized feedback loops. These are
effective processes to provide a big-picture view of an individual employee’s
progress. However, they can also be too infrequent, top down and not
transparent enough to impact on company culture. You can make more significant
change on a daily bases by creating opportunities to share praise that is not
called upon. This makes it more authentic, organic, and appreciation-driven.
Lean Tip #2964 – Define - What’s Your Ideal
Culture?
You want a better workplace culture, but what
does that mean? To create measurable results and give direction to your teams,
you have to define your ideal culture. Put those fantastic ideas for your
organizational purpose, core values, and more on paper! Just start defining and
then you’ll be able to narrow it down naturally. This is your opportunity to
put the flavor of your unique culture out there, so have fun with it and
involve your leadership and culture-building teams. If you have core values
already, we can revisit them with you in a workshop and help you define what
behaviors might support them [bringing us into the next step].
Lean Tip #2965 – Reinforce the Desired Culture
in All Organizational Systems.
A strong focus on changing behaviors is a
necessary condition for success. It is not enough to try to shape attitudes or
develop and communicate a set of values; leaders must ensure that incentives
reinforce desired behaviors. To support the desired culture, therefore, all key
systems must be revised to reinforce the behaviors. All of the important people
processes — recruiting, assessment, performance management, and development —
must be carefully assessed and consistently modified to drive the desired culture.
Lean Tip #2966 – Make Listening a Priority
It is not enough to simply say that you're
going to start listening to your workers, you must make listening to them a
priority. It's important to develop active listening skills, so your team knows
that you are really listening to what they have to say. Improving your
listening skills will make you a better leader and enable you to better manage
your team.
Look for and create opportunities to listen to
your team. For example, set time aside when conducting both individual and
group meetings for your employees to discuss their work experience and provide
constructive feedback. Once your team discovers that they are able to provide
honest feedback without negative results from management, they will start to
look forward to these opportunities to share their ideas with you.
Lean
Tip #2967 – Make Engagement Part of Listening
Listening
is the starting point for boosting employee engagement in the workplace. When
your employees express an opinion, it is important to actively listen to what
they have to say by taking the time to ask questions, gather feedback and
encourage them to elaborate more on their input so you have a rich
understanding of what they’re trying to communicate.
Ensure
that you’ve heard them fully by repeating back what you’ve heard, giving them
an opportunity to clarify their points if necessary. Engaging with your people
in this way will let them know that you are listening to them and it will
reduce potential miscommunication between you and your team.
Lean
Tip #2968 – After Listening Take Action
Listening
is only the first step. You must also take action. This doesn't mean that you
have to act on every suggestion or concern that your team has, but you should
always closely evaluate what they have to say. Then, when you come across
employee suggestions or concerns that call for more attention, don't stop at
just listening - take action.
Develop
a plan that will put your employee's idea into action. Technology can help with
this by delivering bite-sized, personalized actions to employees and managers
so that everyone is empowered to impact engagement right away. When your
employees know that you are willing to make changes based on ideas or issues
they have shared, they will know that you not only want to listen to them - but
that you truly care about what they have to say.
Lean
Tip #2969 - Follow-Up Is Vital
Listening
is not a point-in-time activity, it is ongoing. If you fail to follow up on the
input you’ve received, your efforts to show your employees that you are really
listening to them will be for naught. For example, take the time to thank your
employees for providing honest feedback, let your employees know what actions,
if any, are being taken, and use communication tools (i.e., the company
newsletter) to share survey results and follow on action. It’s critical that
your employees know you’ve heard them, even if immediate change is not
possible.
Lean
Tip #2970 – Show Employees That You Care
When
you listen to their issues and solve it, they believe that you care for them as
an employer. When they know you care, then they work harder and aim higher than
expected results.
Employees
love to work under leaders who care for them, they do not want to be looked as
tools or resources utilized for the success of the organization. Employees
always want to have a good relationship where employers listen to their
concerns at times of professional hardships.
