Category: Personal Development

Each year at the Alabama SHRM State Conference, we survey participants to gain insights into what their biggest pain points are. Before I even looked at the data this year, my guess was that recruiting was at the top of the list or has at least risen to the top of the list. With the unemployment rate now lower than 4% national wide, the pain of finding talent is real.

But what we saw in the results left talent sourcing/acquisition in the middle of the pack:

Tied for the highest pain points were leadership training and employee development.  If we look at the data over the three years that we have done the survey, these are both still the top two, with employee development being the highest and leadership training coming in a close second.

Maybe these are the focus because of the need to retain top talent so that recruiting doesn’t have to become a pain point.

Of course this is in no way a scientific study and the sample size was small, but it is interesting to consider if these are the biggest pain points, what can be done about them?

I would suggest the following:

• When it comes to employee development, design a system that supports your company’s goals and values and matches them with the goals and values of employees.  Our Leaders as Career Agents process at Horizon Point is designed to do this. You can find some more food for thought in this post: A Culture Where Nothing Is Ever Good Enough and How To Fix It: An Interview with Rajeev Behera, CEO of Reflective. In addition, a couple of books to consider reading that could help you in thinking through designing a system that is right for your company are:

Radical Candor

Work Rules

 

• Create a structured Leadership Training/Development Program.  You can customize this for your company with a reputable vendor or you can select an off-the-shelf program that is right for you.  The key is to make sure the program:

1. Builds self-awareness in participants (a good program incorporates some type of validated assessment)
2. Builds understanding of others and helps participants connect their self-awareness to influencing others through self-monitoring
3. Helps people to think differently and ultimately behave differently
4. In order to drive home positive behavioral outcomes, incorporating some type of action plan/homework should be required post-training
5. Should gather individual and organizational metrics to monitor the success of the program

 

Some resources to consider through Horizon Point to help you with designing or purchasing a leadership training program can be found here:  Key Training Topics. This also includes information about a few of our leadership training partners and their programs:

• Boss Leadership Training 
• Wildsparq Leadership Development Platform

I also like these providers/programs:

• Center for Creative Leadership
• Some DDI curriculum
• If you are in Alabama, AIDT’s curriculum for new and expanding industries

 

Sometimes we neglect employee development and leadership training because we just don’t know where to start.  Hopefully these resources will help to get you started if these two things are your biggest pain points.

What are you biggest pain points?

 

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What are your biggest HR Pain Points?

I recently read an article written by Amy Morin, a psychotherapist who lost her husband suddenly at age 26. She talked about how her company provided her with the bereavement leave she needed to grieve, but more so about how they handled her return. She spoke of how her manager let her ease back into work by starting on a Friday and not having too much on her plate her first few days in the office. And she talked about how that manager asked her prior to her return how she wanted the topic of her husband’s death to be handled around the office. Did she want employees asking her about how she was doing, or expressing their condolences? While it didn’t ease her pain, it made her return to work so much easier.

As leaders, we often have a difficult time knowing how to handle employee hardships. Leaders have to look at what impact there will be to the company if the employee needs to take leave, while also considering how to be supportive to the employee during a difficult personal experience. And as is human nature, when someone is suffering, we often have a difficult time knowing how to react or what to say.

Here are a few ways leaders can be authentic when handling employee hardships.

• If an employee needs to go out on leave, take the time to provide them with their options and put it in writing so that they can review it later. Chances are they’re not fully able to focus on the information you have provided them verbally. Follow up with them after a few days to see if they have any questions.
• Reach out to them shortly before their return and discuss when and how they will return to work. Will they start back at the end of the week or part-time for a couple weeks to slowly ease back into the swing of things? Do they want to just jump right back in? Do they want co-workers approaching them about the situation or would they rather it not be addressed?
• Be empathetic and be patient. Let the employee know through your actions that while you may not understand what they are going through, you understand it is a difficult time for them. Don’t expect them to be back to full capacity on day one of their return, whether their leave was due to a death, a health issue, or another type of hardship, they may take some time to get back up to speed.

Too often leaders view an employee’s need for leave as an inconvenience, failing to be empathetic to what the employee is going through. This lack of empathy and accommodation will eventually have a negative impact on how employees view the culture of the organization.

Is your organization’s culture supportive and empathetic to employees during personal hardships?

To read Amy’s article, click here.

“Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” – Sir Richard Branson

As another school year comes to a close, my boys have already started getting that end of year fever. To them the end of the school year means a break from learning. To me it means a summer filled with opportunities to teach them things they can’t experience in a classroom. With that comes the opportunity to encourage them to challenge themselves and set personal goals for what they want to accomplish during the summer (besides sleeping in).

Performance reviews are a great opportunity for leadership to sit down with employees and not only review their past performance, but to also help employee set personal learning goals for their future as well. While employees are an organization’s best asset, those assets are only worth what an organization puts into them. The more an organization encourages employees to seek out continuous learning opportunities and the more resources an organization provides for employees to do so, the more valuable the employees become to the organization.

There are countless ways for an organization to provide continuous learning opportunities. Regardless of the size of your organization, there are ways to help your employees grow in their careers. Some options include:

• Tuition Reimbursement Programs
• In-House Training Programs
• Webinars & Conferences
• Lunch and Learn Sessions
• Vendor Presentations (these are often provided for free)
• Mentor/Shadowing Programs
• Monthly Informative Newsletters

Providing training opportunities to employees not only helps them to increase their knowledge, it helps them feel more connected to the organization. Leaders can encourage employees in their efforts through continuous feedback and review of the goals set during the performance review process.

Are you increasing the value of your organization’s biggest asset through continuous learning?