How to Improve Employee Development Program

In order to track changes in the market and the ways of doing business, it is essential for companies to educate their employees for them to adapt to the current situation and to acquire the necessary business skills that will assist them in building their career. One of the key motivational factors is the employee’s desire for promotion.

If this desire coincides with the company’s vision, and the company invests in further employee education, then the staff gets happy and motivated. This way, the company also shows care and creates a sense of loyalty to the company. Loyal employees will be more motivated to work, and therefore will be more productive, which in its turn leads to higher revenues.

Employee loyalty

There are more and more employees with no loyalty to their company, and who are ready to leave it in the lurch and continue their career elsewhere. Is that the fault of the company or the employee? It used to be enough to give higher salaries and big bonuses to “buy” loyalty. Today, it is not enough because there is always another company that will offer more.

By investing in employee development and caring about their preferences for learning new business skills, companies can earn employee loyalty. Otherwise, employees won’t have the opportunity to grow and develop their business skills, and will feel stuck.

Higher productivity

The goal of any company is higher profit, and employees are instrumental in this. In the end, it’s all about money. The more money the company invests in its employees, the more money they will bring in the end.

According to the research conducted by the Deloitte University Press, the majority will stay with the companies that know how to shape leaders. The need for true leaders is increasing at all organizational levels. Last year, almost 90% percent of companies recognized leadership as an issue of great importance.

Companies need to devise learning programs in order to shape skills and characteristics of the future professionals.

How to develop employees’ leadership skills?

In his book “Emotional Intelligence in business,” Daniel Goleman, one of the founders of the concept of emotional intelligence, talks about soft skills like Social Competence, that is the ability to master relationships and emphasize with others.

These skills, without which success in business is not possible, include the potential influence, the ability to communicate, motivate others and themselves, conflict resolution and acceptance of change.

Soft skills are important for focus and motivation in the workplace. They are also vital for managing projects and people. Every manager, whether it’s middle or top management, should develop their management skills and positive attitudes in the following areas:

• leadership
• communication
• teamwork
• negotiation
• sociability

With experienced managers’ help, employees should learn how and when to use oral and written communication, develop listening skills and a complete understanding of instructions.

Fresh development programs

Companies should consider creating leadership development systems which will collect data, monitor the development of young professionals, and help in identifying the DNA of future leaders.

These modern solutions are designed to encourage employees to show their best. These development programs can be tailor-made, and in that way managers can create training courses which can find practical applications in the future work of their employees.

Custom software development programs

These programs have proven to be the perfect solution for most companies. Why?

Unlike the same programs used by several companies, such a custom program is designed specifically for a particular organization and its needs. You can make a perfect learning management platform that can help your employees to make progress, and software team can change the characteristics depending on your preference. This is an investment for the long run.

Challenges of employee development programs

Implementation

Although 56% of HR managers believed that training programs are essential in every business, based on the SHIFT research, organizations are not doing enough in the implementation of such training programs and teaching staff.

Onboarding

It is important to realize the importance of onboarding, judging by the opinion of PWC. If you lose an employee within the first year, then you will lose an even bigger amount of money.

Mistiming

It is shown that when we learn something, we forget almost half of it after 20 minutes, and almost 70 % after nine hours. So, the solution is to be patient. If you want your employees to adopt new knowledge, give your staff enough time to process and implement what they need to learn.

Feedback from your employees

Their honest opinions will help to improve the learning program and to help to develop a platform where people can learn and adopt the latest and practical information.

Learning platforms that really work: Corporate Learning Portal for PayPal Inc.

Iflexion has developed a platform for PayPal in order to help their employees to have a unique place where they can learn best practices, and where the progress of new employees can be monitored.

What is great about this platform is its functionality.

It can be used online and offline, it has a wide choice of training courses for all levels of management and many learning options. Employees can adopt new knowledge via different tests, quizzes and of course assignments. A special attention was paid to make the learning process as fun as it is educational and practical. Speaking of technical details, the program is based on Moodle LMS.  For now, the employees rated this portal with high marks.

The future of corporate learning

Corporations listen to the needs of not only the market, but above all of their employees. Companies that want to survive in this changing market must invest in employee development programs. The ones that will accelerate the process of adaptation of new employees, and which will open new horizons for experienced managers.

Will companies be investing in mobile applications, so that employees will be able to access new content at all times? Or will they let a technology partner to tailor a perfect solution for its employees, like PayPal did?

What is important is to gain advantage in the market, and the biggest advantage of each company are people. Therefore consider carefully how this resource may become your greatest asset.