Running a business successfully is about more than just hiring the right people for the right jobs – although of course that helps. If you want to have success that sustains itself, the important thing is to avoid complacency. But this is something that is easier said than done; if you are doing something well, then the impulse is to keep going as you are. That naturally lends itself to complacency because it suggests that there is nothing you can improve, or that trying to improve would be a risk.
To really have the best chance of achieving ongoing success, it is important to make sure that the change is as organic as possible. Hiring externally is not without benefits, but there is certainly something to be said for being a business that promotes from within, assists its employees in getting better at their jobs, and in so doing opens opportunities at entry level to keep the cycle going. As part of this process, the necessity of upskilling employees shouldn’t be forgotten. Below, there are some tips on how upskilling can be done most effectively.
Spot the potential on which you can build
Every time you speak to an employee, you’ll find an extra opportunity to learn something about them that you didn’t know before. It’s worth filing away these tidbits of information for a point later on. If one colleague mentions that they have a degree in film production, that could be beneficial later on if you’re making advertising content for the web. If someone else mentions that they have been learning another language, that may be useful for other reasons. There may be dozens of ways that any of your employees could add to your business’ overall skill set, so it’s worth being on the lookout for it.
Offer your employees the chance to grow while they work
When your business needs to find someone, who can deliver a certain skill – live translation for overseas partners, or customer relations management when there is a particularly tricky problem to solve – it’s always better to have that skill already within the business. Outsourcing will cost more, and will see services delivered for your business by someone with no institutional loyalty to it, so it can come across as inauthentic. Give your existing employees the best chance to shine. If you provide an experienced worker with night classes in bookkeeping and practice management software for accountants, they’ll be better equipped to run the accounts side of the business than a fresh hire.
Give your employees the chance to become teachers
There can never be too much of any given skill within your business, so offering more and more people the chance to boost their abilities is another way of boosting your workforce’s value. You can make this process all the more efficient by offering for employees who are skilled in a category to provide lessons in that category for your other employees. Learning from a trusted, respected colleague will benefit everyone in the department and it is an excellent way for the one doing the teaching to benefit from an experience of responsibility.
