Evaluate your approach.
For example, let’s evaluate your sales staff. Do you have sales people who wait for you to approach them or permit them to work on their professional development rather than seeking out professional development opportunities themselves? If that is the case, one reason could be because of your characterization of professional development. Some organizations acknowledge good employee performance with some sort of a reward or award system and provide, for example, catered lunches, flowers, or movie tickets. While this is a nice gesture, it does very little for the employee or the business. Are other types of rewards that could create something more valuable for both the employee and the organization? Adding more value could be achieved if these organizations would invest funds in a training class rather than a catered lunch. Perhaps your focus on professional development for your employees is on reading books, listening to podcasts, or an in-house training as it appears to be the most cost effective. Does this method raise sufficient professional development opportunities for your employees? How can it be cost effective when, at the end, the bottom line doesn’t grow the way you would like it to grow? Frankly, you saved money at the front end just to lose it on the back end.
Have a balanced plan.
It is proven that a balanced professional development plan will help your employees succeed in their jobs and increase your overall revenue as their performance increases. A balanced professional development plan offers various learning opportunities and ranges from reading, project volunteering, online courses, webinars, and on-site training to multi-level certifications. When creating a balanced professional development plan, start by identifying a few areas you would like to see improve. As an example, your sales team’s close ratio for booked events or birthday parties is too low, and you would like to see that area improve by 50%. Next, look for training courses and on-site training opportunities provided by expert trainers such as TrainerTainment who can specifically target these areas and work with your team. Then design your budget accordingly. When thinking about your return on investment in this matter, here are some questions to consider:
- How will this training and new knowledge increase the bottom line?
- How will this new skill improve the guest service?
- How will this new knowledge improve process effectiveness and employee engagement?
Who wouldn’t be willing to invest in their employees’ professional development plan in anticipation of a good ROI?
