Perhaps you’ve heard that providing your people with development opportunities is the key to long term business success. Maybe you’ve also heard that developing people at work is the critical missing link that ensures ‘people engagement’ – also something that is supposed to be important for your business. You also figure it would be helpful knowing how to figure out if your people are ‘engaged’, let alone knowing how to make it happen.
Whilst it all sounds like a good idea, you’re wondering how on earth you could do it without breaking the bank, and without ‘engaging’ and upskilling your people only to have them leave a nano-second later. You may also be thinking; “Heck, why can’t my people just do what I pay them for; why don’t they just ‘get it’ and work the job they signed up to do”!
The answers to all the above are conceptually simple and potentially complex in application. The good thing to know is that, with some planning and a few simple processes, you can create;
At the same time, you need to know that you will need to make some form of investment without creating a significant cashflow challenge.
The three major challenges
When was the last time you bought something that you thought would be great for your business, only to discover that there was some major hurdle that you had to overcome to get that thing to work for you? A hurdle which, if you had known before you invested, might have made you think twice about the purchase.
Employing and developing people can be the same. When things go smoothly, the results can be a massive boost to your business. The trouble is more often than not they don’t. The thing about employing and developing people at work is that you are working with a set of complicated elements that each have inherent challenges. Let’s explore the three main challenges you will face as you work to create an environment of continuous people development in your workplace..
1. The people
People are complex. Not only are they complex; the nature of that complexity can change from day to day. You think you have a staff member figured out and then something goes on (either at work or outside work) and what worked yesterday no longer works today!
Which of the following sound familiar to you, perhaps representing challenges you have had or are now facing in your business?
Each of the above is difficult and each has the potential to put a serious dent in your business’ performance. Each has the potential to take quite a chunk of your time to resolve or at least minimise the potential downside. If you don’t attend to matters adequately you often only create stopgap solutions that can unravel easily or create new challenges of their own. Finding the time to create workable solutions can also be problematic.
These issues, and others like them, can be effectively managed by introducing core people development processes that support the employee, reinforce business objectives, and create sustainable solutions.
2. The business
Given that people are complex, it could be argued that the business of running a business is even more complex. There are (as an indicative list):
Each of these has their own subset of minutiae to keep you busy. Part of the solution to managing these disparate business matters is to have good people to do the work that each entails and having sound processes, policies and systems to effectively oversee each core functional activity.
3. The Manager
It seems that almost every bookstore you go to (or every second website you click on) has some advice for managers. That advice could be about any of the following:
A critical unsaid part in all of this is that businesses need managers; they form an essential function in helping a business accomplish its essential functions and achieve critical objectives. Yet, what often happens in a business is that once an employee becomes a manager there is often little guidance on how to be effective in a management role. It can sometimes appear to a newly promoted manager that it is a case of ‘sink or swim’ (sometimes without access to a lifeguard).
When a business incorporates a culture of continuous people development, the manager becomes part of that development process; both as guide and a learner. Integrating the elements that enable such a culture requires considerable organisational will and determination. Will to rise above challenges, integrate new systems and process and the determination to acknowledge success and strive to meet business objectives.
Continuous People Development
The answer to creating a thriving business culture focused on moving forward lies in the concept of ‘Continuous People Development’. Continuous People Development is akin to the concept of Continuous Business Improvement; steady incremental efforts that, over time, result in consistent, repeatable and embedded changes that result in a disproportionate business benefit.
Continuous People Development is not continual training or constant workplace learning. Rather, the concept is an amalgam of learning, coaching, appraisal, conversation, and regular attention. It involves a flow of dialogue, rights, responsibilities, expectations, action and commitment from each of the employee, their manager and the business they work for.
People Development at work is a process of investing (time, money and other business resources) in improving, refining and encouraging of employees’ existing skills, and supporting development of new ones. It includes regular and emotionally mature dialogue to ensure appropriate development is undertaken. It is a planned process that aligns individual competence and business needs with the intention of contributing to the accomplishment of desired business outcomes.
Continuous People Development occurs when people development becomes part of the culture of the business, part of the ‘way we do things here’. It is the embedding of a development mindset in all people in the business such that it becomes an unquestionable tenet of business operations.
The emphasis here is on the concept of ‘development’. Whilst true learning incorporates the concept of applying new knowledge through the consistent application of skills, People Development ensures that the learning is aligned with business and individual needs in such a way that the outcome generates growth for both.
Also, it is important to note that, Continuous People Development is something that happens for all people in the business. It is just applicable to managers, business owners or senior executives as it is to all other roles in the enterprise. Amongst other things it’s about setting the tone. It is also about banishing the assumption that once you’ve ‘risen to the top’ you require no further development.
A Model for Continuous People Development
The image below shows a model of how Continuous People Development looks, or works, in an organisation. In later posts we’ll talk in more detail about each element of the model and how you can get this concept working for you. For now, let’s get a handle on the model and its implications for you, your people and your business.
The core premise of this model is that effective employee development consists of the interplay between three key parties: the Business, it’s Management and its Employees, working together to achieve shared desired outcomes. Further, that this interplay is a conscious, consistently scheduled series of actions that are followed through to bring about organisation and individual growth.
The first thing to point out is the two flows between each of the nodes of the model. These bilateral flows indicate that any element of the process has ‘rights’ and with those rights there are equal obligations. For example, an employee may feel they have a right to a safe workplace and reasonable pay (provided by the business). At the same time, they have an equal obligation to provide their skills, knowledge, competence and best efforts in undertaking their work and contributing to the positive future of the business.
The following table summarises the core concepts of the models.Element | Flow to Employees | Flow to Managers | Flow to Business |
|---|---|---|---|
Business | Cell | Cell | |
Encompasses policies, procedures, processes, pay conditions and systems that actively support Continuous People Development in pursuit of its Mission, Vision, Values and Purpose. | Equitable, inclusive safe workplace that optimises individual contribution and supports wellbeing | Active development, clear organisational direction, license to operate, scope to grow | Cell |
Manager | Cell | Cell | Cell |
Respectfully leads people in line with organisational objectives and supports them as they undertake work activities that support business accomplishment. | Open, emotionally mature communication that establishes work boundaries and sustains active development plans. | Actively supports business objectives, mission, vision, values and purpose by words and actions. | |
Employee | Cell | Cell | |
Contributes skills, talents and abilities to the best of their ability in helping the business achieve its objectives | Cell | Contribute effort to achieve personal and business goals, providing a unique voice to team functions. | Open, emotionally mature communication the provides effective feedback and accepts influence in pursuit of established outcomes. |
Where To Next?
Bringing all these elements together can seem like a mammoth task. The key is to recognise that Continuous People development is a long-term process, not a one-off event. When you commit to undertake meaningful development at all levels of the business you are commencing a significant change initiative that is best approached in a methodical, planned manner.
The great thing is that you can make incremental changes to the way you do things that don’t require massive investments in costly resourcing. The journey can begin with simple, structured conversations with your people. These conversations can be converted into development plans that can then be tracked and used to determine if desired outcomes have been met.
See the links below to read more about continuous people development and how you can introduce tis important improvement function into your business.