We hear it frequently: "because of everyday tasks, employees don't have time to learn new things." And you, too, probably find that there is far too little time in a day. However, it is extremely important to make time for personal development of employees. After all, if you do nothing, nothing special will happen. A book does not read itself and Messi does not win the golden ball without training hard and challenging himself every day. If employees do nothing, they will grow steadily through the tasks they fulfill every day, but that is too little to keep up with today's changing world. Do employees want to optimally develop themselves and continue to learn? Then it is crucial that they make time to do so. But how can you ensure that they are aware of this and actually make time for it?
1. Give employees time to learn
If employees do not make time for their own personal development, then as an employer you need to make sure that you give them the time to do so anyway. For example, it works very well to allow employees to be alone on a regular basis. For example, let them go outside for a while or sit in a coffee shop. Without a phone, laptop or other distracting factors, of course. This way you give them time to think carefully about their thoughts, plans and development.
2. Make it a habit
Learning a new habit takes an average of 21 days, research shows. Those 21 days are tough, but once it's a habit it all becomes a lot easier. Ideally, of course, you want continued learning and development to become part of daily work. To achieve this, you can, for example, encourage employees to add it to their weekly diary, that way they will have a moment to think about it every week. In addition, it is a nice idea to link personal development to a daily action, such as eating a banana or getting a cup of coffee. Making it a habit to take a moment to reflect on personal development while eating a banana makes it even easier. If employees like to learn via e-learnings or podcasts, you can make it a habit to do so on the road on the bus, train or car. Otherwise, you often waste that time listening to the radio anyway.
3. Engage with employees on personal development
Talking about development keeps it alive. Challenging employees' brains regularly keeps them healthy and sharp. In doing so, it is important to take employees out of their daily routine from time to time. So really take a moment, go outside, and talk together about how the employee can learn even more and become even better. This ensures that he/she remains open to new ideas and knowledge.
4. Have employees set challenging goals
There are plenty of reasons why goal setting is important . One is that setting goals allows you to get the best out of yourself. Allowing employees to set ambitious goals requires them to step out of their comfort zone, and the boundary area of the comfort zone is where personal development takes place. For example, some people find it very scary to go on a trip alone. Do they do this anyway? Then they often experience mega-growth. So have employees set ambitious goals. By using Treams' software , you can make the entire process of setting and achieving goals much easier. However, it is important in this process that employees focus on one thing at a time. If they focus on several things at once, they will not develop as quickly.
E-book: Setting Goals
How can you set goals in the best way? What kinds of goals are there? And what does goal setting yield? In this e-book, we give you tips&tricks and tools.
5. Give employees the confidence
Development does not have to mean an employee's immediate promotion. Development can also be very small and really doesn't have to be only for high-potentials. For example, when you find presenting very scary, to do this once. Every little bit helps and it is important to give this to your employees and give them confidence. Employees can choose how hard they want to go.
6. Facilitate employees with the resources they need
NIDAP research shows that 40 percent of employees feel that training opportunities at the company where they work are unclear. Providing training opportunities is important, but communicating what is available is especially crucial. Make sure employees have all the resources they need to grow and know about them. Think of training courses, podcasts or e-learnings, but also (online) tools they need to perform their jobs optimally. To lower the threshold for further training, the government is introducing the personal development budget . This will make it possible for everyone to keep learning!
7. Learning from each other
Don't have enough budget to offer every employee different training sessions? Or do you just want to do it a different way? Employees can also very easily learn from each other. For example, let them share their experiences and knowledge in joint sessions. For example, at Treams we hold a Smaert session every month (Hey, that's fun: Smaert, is reverse Treams!). Employees can sign up for these sessions to talk more about their area of expertise. For example, the Sales department talks about how the sales process works, the Happy-Customer department about project planning and the Development department about writing code. Super inspiring and good for the team spirit!
8. Make someone accountable
To ensure that it is not forgotten, it is important that employees actually feel responsible for their own development. Therefore, it is good to appoint someone to make sure that being engaged in development is actually carried out. This person monitors this entire process and ensures that appointments are not canceled because employees are too busy. This prevents employees from running around like headless chickens without focus.