"When you take the time to focus on your employees' personal needs and goals (in addition to your business goals), you gain loyalty and increased productivity. Everybody wants their boss to care about them. It's not just the Millennials.... everyone feels that way."
Over the years, I've had the benefit of being managed and taught by some really great executives. The following are a few of the best practices for developing people that I learned and implemented in my own organizations.
- Annually - Conduct an annual review meeting with each employee. This needs to be one-on-one in person. As part of the process, have all employees develop a career plan and a one-year personal development plan that they review with you during the meeting and get your feedback. Then you finalize the plan together.
- Quarterly - Schedule a Personal Development meeting to review how your staff is doing on their personal development and review their career goals. It's amazing what comes out of these meetings. Focus on their personal needs and goals. DO NOT talk about short term company issues and problems. Make it positive!
- Monthly - Meet one-on-one with each employee for 20-50 minutes either in person, video call or over the phone. Focus on what they did right and what they can improve. Have your staff give you their own review first, listen and then provide your feedback. Don't just focus on sales quota the whole meeting.
- Weekly - Be available by text, email, phone or a web meeting to teach and help your staff. You don't need to tell them the answers to questions. Get them to send you the three best options to solve a problem and their recommended solution. You can always direct them to the fastest, best resource to help them with their problems. I love the old proverb that goes something like this: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
- On-Going - Get them committed to Self-Paced Training Programs - Pay for an annual web-based self-paced training subscription service for your team. These courses should be included as part of the employee development plans. It improves employee skill sets and it shows that you care about their personal development.
Let me know if you have any questions. I'm happy to provide a free consult with you to get you started.
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