October 2013

How to Get the Best from Your Team



Dear Reader,

Many people believe that once they’ve hired new employees, they can sit back and relax, because the hard work is done. However, this is just the start of it!

From the very first day they start working for you, new employees start to develop and broaden their skills. They learn about your company and its industry, and often pick up skills that they aren’t even aware of.  They can even pick up bad habits and before long, the ‘honeymoon’ period will be over.

This means that as a business owner, you need to think really carefully about how you develop your people, right from their first day. When you take the time to develop your people, you’ll find it easier to build a long-term team for your business and that’s what this issue of PepTalk focuses on.

Best wishes,

Michelle Prescott



How to Get the Best from Your Team


If you want true growth as a company, your employees have to be able to develop from their very first day onwards.

We all develop every day, week, month and year. Some of us love adapting to challenges, but even if you’ve got an employee who doesn’t like change, external circumstances are developing them whether they know it or not. That’s because life doesn’t stand still.

As an example, when I first started working, having your own computer, emailing and using a phone that was small enough to fit in your pocket was the stuff of science fiction. Technology is evolving and the businesses I worked for embraced the changes. The biggest technophobe can learn new skills – even if it’s just how to use newer software.

The key point is, we all develop, and a good boss will harness that development and use it effectively. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about office juniors or high-powered executives, we all have skills and experience to be utilised. It’s not what you know; it’s what you do with what they know.

A good boss helps their employees realise what they can achieve, encouraging and supporting their development.

How should you approach developing your team? As a boss you need to be flexible – there’s no perfect way of going about people development and no magic formula. We’re all different and even the smallest of offices are made up of various personalities.

What people development is not …

It’s not about holding an appraisal meeting once or twice a year. Neither is it getting employees to take on more work or using the ‘carrot and stick’ of subjective bonuses.  

It’s also not about just sending someone on a course in the expectation that they will come back knowing everything you want them to know!

So, what is people development about?

It’s about recognising that people have different reasons for working and different ideas about their careers. It’s also about being aware that you’ll probably need to vary your approaches for different people.

It’s about understanding that employee development comes with being the boss and if you incorporate it into your toolkit of how to build a successful team then, you can achieve real success.




Where Can You Get More Help?


For more advice and information on developing your employees, take a look at the CIPD website by clicking here.

And when it’s ready, you’ll be able to read more on this topic in my book – which will be published next year!




www.personapm.co.uk
michelle.prescott@personapm.co.uk