Creating an improved talent development program for your organization requires planning and cooperation between your human resource and learning teams. However, wherever things sit currently, it is possible to make some improvements over time by following some simple talent development best practices. Learn how and where you can start:
1. Understand your company objectives.
Based on the organizational objectives, you need to build your improved talent development plan to align with these goals and your business strategy for the near future. Start from where you are now and build from there. This will help you make sure that you’re investing in the right initiatives.
Let’s say your company is planning to work more with machine learning. That means that developing your employees’ skills in that area will be crucial for the future success of your organization.
2. Identify opportunities for upskilling and reskilling.
Take an inventory of current employee skills. What’s being utilized, and what’s just waiting to be applied? Understanding where underutilized expertise and knowledge are can be an excellent way to develop the necessary skills and capabilities for the organization. Take into consideration that new job types will require new or adaptable skills.
Which employees already have the basic skills that you can focus on developing? These are great candidates for participating in upskilling initiatives. Also, if there are jobs that are at risk of becoming obsolete while other roles are emerging, consider how you can reskill your existing employees to take on the new positions.
3. Provide many learning options and methods.
By using a tailored approach to learning and development, you can build a program that meets the needs of all employees. Talent development isn’t just about formal training. It can also include on-the-job learning, mentorship programs, coaching, e-learning, self-learning, and more. Involve managers in the process and create directories of learning resources. These should be readily available to your employees.
4. Create a culture that embraces continuous learning.
Encourage active learning and focus on developing adaptability. Motivate employees carve out time to learn every day. Make continuous learning a cultural core value and find ways to instill this mindset into your workforce.
A great example of this is Visa, which has created a strong culture of learning by establishing a learning team, corporate university, and an ongoing effort to provide industry-leading customized curriculum for its employees.
5. Promote performance coaching.
As a form of on-the-job learning, performance coaching stimulates employees to improve their skills through everyday interactions. It plays a crucial role in talent development. For example, managers can use a Skill Will Matrix to determine the right coaching strategies for individual employees. Learning should always be linked to performance, which, in turn, should be defined in measurable parameters.
6. Include leadership development.
Who are the future leaders of your company? Start identifying these people now and prepare a leadership development plan for them. This will help your organization build a solid leadership talent pipeline that will be ready for whatever happens in the future. In addition, focus on helping managers develop better behaviors to improve their relationships with subordinates.
7. Include all stakeholders in the effort.
Now is the time to foster communication between all the people who can build this employee development and training program. This includes human resources, talent managers, team managers, and the employees themselves. Create a committee to regularly discuss gaps, monitor progress, and cheerlead the talent development strategy.
8. Evaluate and improve, often.
For talent development programs to succeed, there needs to be a way to track data and measure it against performance goals. Many learning management systems offer reporting that can help achieve this. However, also look at the feedback received from employees on the quality of the learning and make improvements in response.
To sum up
By following these talent development best practices, your organization will discover many benefits:
increased competitiveness due to highly skilled and knowledgeable employees,
improved engagement levels leading to greater profitability,
better retention rates, which reduces the burden of recruitment.
The investment in developing employees is more than worth it when it comes down to these business goals.
It’s important to note talent development is a long-term process. It takes careful planning, design, and implementation. Then, when your organization is committed to developing your employees, you can be sure that they will help you achieve organizational growth and sustainability.
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