Check it out what you will find on this article about employee development:
- The Problems Due to Manager Over-Involvement
- Why the Connector Manager Improves Performance
- How to Train Managers to Customize Employee Development
- How to Drive Your Team Toward Peer Development
- Enable Managers to Partner Together
- Project Management Software May Boost Employee Development
While many companies worldwide have made significant changes to their performance management processes, there are still a variety of gaps and challenges that remain. A major issue includes the greater focus on increasing manager involvement, which may actually make it harder for employees to successfully complete their work. For example, would you enjoy having someone watching over you every step of the way when you’re managing a project? Employee development needs to be somewhat less hands-on if a boss wants to avoid causing workers too much stress.
The Problems Due to Manager Over-Involvement
When someone provides frequent feedback and constantly looks over your shoulder, it creates a work environment that is more anxiety-ridden and stressful. Workers who get constant feedback often feel as if they are doing something wrong or that their manager does not trust them.
In such a work environment, employees tend to be less engaged, especially when they receive frequent feedback. Workers may start to think of the manager’s directions as unimportant. Additionally, any gaps in the skills among the managers may be problematic due to imperfect or misleading employee development. However, there is one type of manager that has shown to be able to create high performing employees.
Why the Connector Manager Improves Performance
The connector manager has shown to drive employee engagement and significantly increase the likelihood that their workers will become high performing employees. According to the Harvard Business Review, connector managers provide more targeted feedback to workers that align with the manager’s skills and expertise.
Additionally, when a connector manager does not have the skills and capability to train a worker in a particular area, they work to connect that employee with the right person in the company who has more expertise in a particular area. The connector manager spends much of their time working on analyzing the skills, passions, and needs of their workers. Most importantly, this type of manager understands that many skills necessary to run a company successfully can be better taught by people besides himself/herself.
Among the several types of managers, the Harvard Business Review reports that the connector manager is three times more likely to have employees who are high performers.
Connector managers can greatly improve employee development by outsourcing the more specific trainings to other experts so that their workers receive the skills they need from individuals who are more suited for particular areas. For example, a resident in a hospital is usually trained by multiple doctors and specialists in order to gain the skills they need after their residency program.
“Historically, being a manager is about being directive and telling people what to do,” Jaime Roca, a practice leader for human resources at Gartner, told the news source. “Being a Connector is more about asking the right questions, providing tailored feedback, and helping employees make a connection to a colleague who can help them.”
Essentially, to become this type of manager, an individual needs to have the understanding that he or she is not qualified to teach a particular ability as well as the candor necessary to tell their workers about their lack of skills in a certain area. As such, it is vital for managers to bring their focus onto the quality of their conversations with their employees instead of the frequency of their feedback.
Focus on what type of skills and passions your employees have in order to further improve your employee development program. Additionally, development can be opened up to the whole team where everyone can have input on ways to improve the entire team’s skills.
Drive a conversation among employees where they can learn to coach one another. Let your workers know if a certain staff member has skills they could benefit from learning. Open it up beyond your team and encourage workers to reach out to colleagues in other departments.
“The big takeaway is that when it comes to coaching employees, being a Connector is how you win,” Roca explained.
How to Train Managers to Customize Employee Development
Managers who personalize employee development is a necessity in today’s corporate world. This is easier said than done, however. For instance, Business Insider cites one survey that found 26 percent of managers stating they were not ready to become a leader when they first began managing others. Additionally, as many as 58 percent of all respondents stated that they had not received any management training.
Some of the biggest issues that managers cited regarding their jobs included handling issues between co-workers (25 percent), motivating their team (22 percent), finding the right resources to support their employees (15 percent), and managing performance reviews (15 percent).
When attempting to train managers who will customize employee development in the future, it is vital to address the issues of employee engagement and motivation as well as the ability to create a connector type of manager who will more quickly find the right resources for their workers. Management development training is a must, according to Rick Dacri, author of Uncomplicating Management: Focus on Your Stars & Your Company Will Soar.
Management training that focuses on customizing employee development will be very helpful for a new supervisor. Additionally, for brand-new managers, it is beneficial to connect them with other managers who can mentor them. A mentor can help model the right behavior for a new boss to follow. Be sure to pair them up with managers who have a good grasp of personalizing employee development.
Additionally, consider putting that supervisor in different scenarios working for different departments so that he or she can learn more, make mistakes, and work with a variety of different people.
When attempting to customize or personalize employee development, it is key to remember that every employee is different. By understanding what pace an employee works at, how much a worker is able to get done, and what type of personality they have, you’ll be able to more quickly boost employee engagement and development.
The next step to take in strengthening your employee development program is to power your team for peer development.
How to Drive Your Team Toward Peer Development
If you are looking to boost employee motivation and drive your team forward in terms of peer development, you should start with putting your team in the driver’s seat and making sure employees are involved in company decision-making. Instead of telling your workers what needs to be done, ask for their input. This will boost motivation and help your team members work together. This is meant to improve peer development as well.
However, if you have an environment where every decision is controlled by the supervisor, employees tend to feel disconnected from the work that they perform. Workers need to feel that their opinion matters, which is why you should put them in the driver’s seat. Be sure to ask your employees their opinions on big and small decisions.
Additionally, let your team find their own process toward meeting weekly, monthly, or quarterly goals. This will be a great way for helping your employees become engaged and work together toward peer development. Lastly, don’t forget to engage your employees through your company mission. If there is a general goal for everyone to meet, it will help keep people on task and engaged.
The last step you’ll want to take in boosting your workers’ development programs is to help managers partner together depending upon their best fit and who they connect with.
Enable Managers to Partner Together
It is vital for a company to help their managers partner with each other based on their best fit and who they connect with the best. For instance, is your management style more like a boss who is focused on power and control or are you more of an inspirational leader who offers guidance?
While performance management tends to require both bosses and leaders, it is useful for managers who are a good fit to partner together. So be sure to partner inspirational leaders together and the more practical, control-based bosses with one another.
An article from Inc.com discusses four strategies for boosting a partnership including those between multiple managers or supervisors. First, it is key to set your expectations and make sure everything between the two parties is clear. Details of a partnership need to be more technical and less emotional. Figure out what each side is expecting from the other within the partnership.
The second part you need to include is to consider your partnering manager a part of your overall team. Make sure the roles of each side are clearly defined and integrate both partnerships within your teams. This will help avoid issues in the future.
The third section involves letting the partnership have room to grow. Be sure that both sides have the ability to scale their projects and resources. Lastly, be sure that both sides embrace honesty and transparency in order to have a truly fruitful partnership between both managers.
If you want to improve employee development and work effectively across teams, it is beneficial to implement the right project management technology for a more motivated and engaged workforce.
Project Management Software May Boost Employee Development
You will find that project management software such as Runrun.it software could improve employee development at your company by increasing collaboration and helping workers remain motivated and engaged. This collaboration tool will keep communication across teams more transparent and honest as well, which will improve partnerships among managers.
With the help of the Runrun.it project management tool, you’ll find that your workflow is smooth and lacks the typical bottlenecks. Click here for a free trial to find out if Runrun.it software is the right choice for your organization.
