We are over half way through the first quarter of the year and I feel the need to ask… where has it gone!
Economic Growth and Change
One of the first departments to go during any sign of economic downturn or hardship is L&D. This is akin to cutting off your hand to fit into a sleeve.
Being able to pivot/add to/ change our business model and/or provision quickly, ensures we remain relevant and competitive, and to do this we need to be able to bring our staff along with us.
So how do we do this? Keeping employees informed of the business climate and the need for change as early as possible, creates a sense of ownership and you will find more employees are eager to help you make the change than are resistant.
Our staff are as invested in our business’s success as we are and we do them a disservice to not involve them. Including them in plans, getting feedback on initiatives and asking for this based on their own experience and skills is invaluable.
Thinking of diversifying? Again, don’t underestimate the skills and experience of your staff to help you create new business. Knowing what skills our staff have and what they are learning, provides opportunities that may not have considered.
Ensuring you provide opportunities and encouragement to learn puts you one step ahead, and will help your future growth as a company along side the development of your staff.
Inhouse Professional Development tips
- Be transparent. Let your staff know what the plans are for your business, encourage their input and truly bring them along on the journey with you.
- Do a skills audit to identify what existing skills and experience your staff bring with them.
- Establish weekly one to ones to ensure staff have time with you to discuss any needs they may have
- Ensure you create SMART goals with every member of your team for the year ahead.
- Ensure you align these with your business objectives, but also enable staff to include personal development they want to achieve
- Check in on these every three to six months to discuss progress, continuing relevance and put into practice growth.
- Create opportunities for staff to share what they have learned.
- This can be done in lunch & learns, an inhouse documentation function like SharePoint, and/or allotting time during team/company wide meetings etc
- If your staff want to learn something that is outside their role, encourage it.
- Extra skills bring bonus in unexpected ways, and your encouragement of your employee will foster an increase in psychological safety and job satisfaction.
- Finally, don’t expect all this input from staff for nothing.
- Ensure you reward appropriately with salary, bonus or promotion. It’s cheaper than having to rehire.
The social heart of Kanyini Consultancy
It was always important to me that I ensure Kanyini Consultancy fulfils a social purpose.
Kanyini Community provide craft workshops and wellbeing walks for community organisations and charities. These provide support and wellbeing for people with mental and physical challenges, reduce loneliness, and provide a space for busy minds.
Both crafts and walking promote physical and mental wellbeing. They are a form of self therapy and meditation, providing a relaxing atmosphere and fighting loneliness by creating groups of people with similar interests.
I’m currently in discussion with several people about providing wellbeing walks that include speakers, writing activities and more! And have been trialling coffee and crochet mornings. I have also recently started the South West Coastal Path and you can read my blog about it in Kanyini Community below.
Watch this space for dates of workshops and walks!
Latest Blog posts from Kanyini Consultancy and Community
Until next month!
kanyini.co.uk 