Importance of Developing your Employees

“You don’t build a business. You build people and then people build the business. – Zig Ziglar

We have mentioned and it is a fact that employees are a company’s biggest and best asset. It makes sense for your company to pay attention to their welfare and invest in developing your employees. The business environment and the workplace are becoming increasingly competitive, which in turn leads to a number of changes that no one anticipated or expected. The demand therefore for skilled and experienced employees is growing but such employees are fewer than the actual demand. Rather than be stuck with an unskilled and disengaged workforce, your company would benefit by developing your employees to ensure that they remain upbeat, energized, and ready to face the rapidly changing business demands, customer needs included. The costs of hiring and training too for employees has gone up significantly and rather than waste time and effort on re-hiring and re-training, it would simpler and more cost effective to invest in consistently developing your employees. The long-term benefits of this strategy will far outweigh any investment that your company may put in.

Developing your employees is about looking for the best possible training solutions that will accelerate their career paths and take them towards better opportunities. It is crucial not just for your company but also for employees to keep abreast with industry happenings and trends, in order to stay relevant and move ahead. As part of developing your employees, your company must encourage them to understand the market realities, recognize and develop their skills and improve their knowledge. In the current competitive environment, companies need and expect their employees to be smart, highly skilled and have the experience relevant for their job roles. Hiring right is the first step towards gaining such a workforce, but to sustain and increase their efficacy, developing your employees becomes the onus of the company. Smart companies have now come to terms with the fact that developing employees is not the domain of the HR department alone – developing your employees must be inextricably weaved into the ‘fabric’ and culture of the company.

Some companies believe that given their limited resources it would extremely hard to balance the training required to help employees work more efficiently with their overall expenses. However, since developing your employees should be a top priority, on-going training becomes a necessity and the better skilled employees are, the more benefits would there be for the company. Knowledgeable staff not only improves productivity and maintain an energized workplace, they are more aligned to the company’s values such as customer-centricity and would display that in the way they treat customers. With time as service and product quality improves, customers become a happier lot resulting in more business and even strong referrals.

Developing your employees through proper training and coaching programs let employees feel safe and cared for. Such feelings ensure that they stay with the company for long and take responsibility for their own development and the improvement of their teams. Every person desires to improve and move ahead in life – both professionally and personally. By making consistent efforts towards developing your employees, your company would be fulfilling a basic desire, albeit with huge potential to steer the company ahead. With so many companies vying for the best talent in the market and in your company, one of the best ways to ensure that your company’s talent stays is by developing your employees – showing them that they have a concrete path to growth and success.

Developing your employees should be a planned activity and an important part of the business strategy and process. While current needs for skills development should be a focus, it should be aligned to the future – anticipated needs in line with the goals and direction of the company. Without such alignment, the process of developing your employees could soon falter as there would be little engagement, enthusiasm and support – both from the leadership and the employees. The whole idea of a ‘process’ is to ensure continuity – from current to the future. The process must begin with a robust plan and training schedule, with programs that would address the training needs and desires of employees.

Developing your employees is crucial for the attainment of the company’s strategic goals and long-term sustainability. A business can only survive and progress if it is in a state of constant development, learning, and improvement – since employees form the backbone of a company, it would necessary to ensure that they can perceive growth and development. It is by developing your employees, that the business would move forward – employees drive growth – the converse is also true. Developing your employees encompasses a number of factors. However, ensuring that they receive on-going training and regular coaching is possibly the most important factor and companies cannot afford to ignore it. A small yet knowledgeable and intelligent workforce is undoubtedly more effective and profitable than a large crowd of disengaged and frustrated employees. What methods has your company put together to ensure the development of the employees? Do you believe that developing your employees has advantages?

Businesses and industries are in a constant state of flux and the situation is often volatile. In order for the business to progress and stay abreast with industry norms, each person within the organization must be geared towards improvement. Developing your employees therefore enables your company to remain updated and relevant despite the numerous and regular changes that take place. As part of the continuous changes, technology is another sphere, which is constantly developing and appears new most of the time. Customers expect that companies serve them efficiently and technology plays a major role in ensuring that they get what they want. However, without developing your employees, they would not understand the latest technological advancements and hence would be unable to serve customers well and work to their full potential.

Each company in the market must do something different and have something unique to offer, in order to stand out from the horde of ‘players’. In order to stay ahead of competition a business must be moving ahead internally – this internal improvement and movement would be consistent when the employees are constantly improving and getting opportunities for advancement. Every company would have its share of strengths and shortcomings – both within the business processes and their existing workforce. By developing your employees, your company cannot only identify the gaps but can also reduce and eliminate them over time. The prerequisite for success is constant movement and advancement and companies that can do this regularly, will achieve their goals a lot quicker than those who stagnate.

The reasons for why developing your employees is critical are possibly endless. There is no denying that the quality of a company’s employees could either make or break it and it is therefore in the best interest of your company to ensure that they are taken care of well. As mentioned, developing your employees should be a process, just like any other critical to business endeavour and must not be dependent on whether your company has earned profits or not. Employees are your prime assets and by investing in them through thoughtful and well-designed programs and strategies, your company will reap rich rewards now and way into the future.

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