One of the roles of a manager in a company is to develop the skills of his teams. In the corporate world, upskilling employees is a key factor in boosting performance.
The human being at the heart of the company’s performance
Helping employees to progress is a recurrent topic at the heart of managerial thinking in companies. Motivated and supported employees whose skills and abilities are recognized by their superiors play a more active role in the company’s performance.
With this in mind, management, in collaboration with human resources, has every interest in helping its employees to grow and develop, as they are a genuine source of growth and productivity. Managing a team means putting people at the heart of productivity and development issues. The manager’s mission is therefore essential in supporting and motivating his or her teams.
How to develop the skills of its employees?
Today, the perception of mobility is no longer seen as a hindrance, but as an opportunity to evolve faster. Employees are more mobile and more likely to change company, not just to get a pay rise, but also to enrich their professional skills.
Directors and managers are well aware of these new behaviors, and know that to retain their staff, training and skills development are notions to be taken into consideration during annual appraisals.
In this process of developing employees, managers must identify the skills expected in a position and share them with their employees. For the strategy to be effective, it’s vital that the manager focuses on the strengths of each team member, which will increase theemployee’s effectiveness in his or her preferred areas. This beneficial stimulation becomes a motivating factor.
They can use a competency framework to effectively assess each person’s abilities. This first evaluation phase allows us to take stock of the strengths and areas for improvement of each person. Ultimately, the aim is to offer a personalized training and support plan, tailored to each individual’s profile.
Companies that use management by objectives can rely on the “SMART” methodology, which enables them to determine objectives and a skills development plan that responds to five points:
- Specific: the project is tailored to the individual employee
- Measurable: the manager must be able to assess whether the objective has been achieved.
- Ambitious: the project must win support and lead to significant results.
- Realistic: the project must be feasible, both humanly and financially.
- Temporally: the project must have a deadline.
The benefits of intermediate objectives and micro-interviews
In order to increase the competence of his teams, the manager must proceed in stages to maintain the commitment and motivation of the employee and to make him grow gradually. Annual objectives can be broken down into intermediate objectives, with due dates, spread out over the year. These intermediate objectives must also be realistic in terms of the timeframe, to allow the employee to prove themselves over a short period of time and quickly measure the results of their efforts.
Themid-year review provides an opportunity to take stock of the progress made towards intermediate objectives and the support the employee needs to achieve them. Micro-interviews or one-to-one interviews also offer the opportunity for rapid personalized follow-up with regular feedback. These micro-interviews are an integral part of the development process and allow for adjustments to be made as intermediate goals are reached. They are also the ideal time to talk about difficulties encountered, skills developed or successful assignments.
This coaching strategy enables each employee to make better progress, while regularly measuring the impact of the coaching actions implemented.
At SQORUS, we pay particular attention to the proximity between managers and employees. We support our employees in the development of their professional skills during mandatory milestones: annual and mid-year interviews. We have also introduced skills grids and salary reviews.
To find out more, take a look at the career paths available to our employees, or contact us.
Join a great place to work
Your career at SQORUS is more than just a job, it’s an opportunity to grow professionally and personally in an environment where individual development contributes to the growth of the whole.
