When it comes to business, it’s hard to think of an area that is more neglected than employee development. Many businesses don’t seem to care about their employee’s future, but doing so would greatly enhance employee performance and enthusiasm in the workplace.
Many people in business have long suspected that there might be something amiss with the way that companies are managing employees. But it’s only recently, with the publication of a study from the Harvard Business Review that their suspicions have been confirmed. Researchers found that even the best and the brightest talent weren’t getting the training they needed. It seemed as if companies were willfully ignoring their own stock of skilled people, preferring instead to try and source new talent on the open market.
This state of affairs actually made incumbent employees unhappy about their jobs and their work. They want to be challenged, and they want their careers to be taken to the next level. Many employers are paying a massive premium to get new talent in the open job market rather than developing their own in-house. Here are some reasons why your business might be ignoring employee development.
You’re Focused On The Present, Not The Future
All the best entrepreneurs in the world are future-focused people. They understand that they need to position themselves for the world of tomorrow if they’re going to capitalize on all the opportunities. But run-of-the-mill businesses don’t think like this. Instead, they’re focused on the present and maximizing shareholder value without thinking about the long term. It’s a problem that training organizations, such as Ellis Whittam, run into all the time. Companies seem more concerned with having internal reshuffles every five minutes than they do with positioning themselves strategically for the economic environment of tomorrow.
They key to getting out of this conundrum is to train your managers. They should be as focused on the problems of future as they are on the problems of today and thinking about what their departments will look like in years to come.
Your Training Is A Bureaucratic Exercise
Training should always be goal oriented, and there should be a way to calculate the return on your investment. But for too many companies, training becomes little more than a bureaucratic exercise – a box to be ticked off, divorced from any notion of profitability. Training that isn’t focused on improving the bottom line of the company is a massive waste of time.
You Don’t Have Time For It
If you don’t have time for training, it’s a good sign that your company isn’t operating in the way it should. Not having enough time for training is like saying you don’t have enough time to market your product or do your accounts. In other words, it’s a lame excuse. Most people have time for what they prioritize, so prioritize training.