~ by Alan W
“We need to empower our teams to deliver innovation that matters.”
True employee growth lies in helping your team build their careers, expand their skills and knowledge, and continuously be inspired to develop their domain signature. Approaching growth is about empowering the individual to achieve their goals by offering guidance, assistance and support in their career journey. To do this, firms need to focus on how we bridge the gap between training and doing. The doing is where business value is finally realised.
How do we successfully achieve this? Growth is not something that can be bought, and there is no instant gratification here either. We cannot expect to send our people on training and then expect growth to be achieved. As a business we need to support our team in the transition from learning to doing. Infuse growth into the business ecosystem by finding ways to structure growth within ‘business as usual’ through initiatives such as subject matter Coffee's; Q&A sessions; online discussion boards, on the job shadowing, and "Ask the experts" workshops.
A highly valued alternative approach to tackling this in-house, is to turn to the industry's veterans. Those in varying domains who have lived through the 'doing' and have the battle scars to prove it. Their exposure to varying real-life scenarios equip them to mentor unlike any colleague showing the ropes. They offer a great source of knowledge and mentorship for the growing employee/collaborator. They are uniquely positioned to guide them on live, real project work, within the real business environment, so that they can grow in the reality of the business environment. These expert mentors offer added value in sharing their veteran views, perspective, tips, tricks, know-hows and how-to's, "in-situ", on-the-job, to help others learn, grow, and be equipped in the transition through the milestones in their career.
They give your employees the ability to:
Start their growth journey with specialist practitioner’s support to reach growth goals.
Get their domain questions answered by experienced expert practitioners.
Improve their deliverables and knowledge.
Make industry connections.
Start thinking and feeling like they are already in their future role.
Most importantly… to BE INSPIRED!
But, this remains a two way street, a specialised growth program should be:
A customised structured program based on individual needs & goals (not a cut and paste!). The goal is to keep the bigger picture in mind so that your employees goals are realistically achieved.
Driven by the individual and supported by the program. People collaboratively create their journey with these expert mentors (and the backdrop of the business) and set personal activities, mini goals and timelines.
Action oriented where tasks and mini goals are set in the journey as a means to drive engagement and to enable accountability. Ensuring efforts remain realistic and in line with the individual (and mindful of business) goals.
Work with Alan W
“Solving niche challenges founders face”.
Illustrator: Lisa Williams (Instagram: @artist_llw)