5 Tips and Strategies to Help Your Team Grow and Develop

Your team is the lifeblood of your company. They’re what powers the engines, drive profits, and help to build up your loyal base of customers of clients. And, as awesome as they already are, their growth and development are the key to continued success and competitiveness for your business.

Today, we’re talking all about how you can invest in strategies that will help your team continue to develop their skillsets. A few changes to your organization are often all it takes to help your employees grow and reach their full potential – ultimately helping you reach yours in the long term.

Invest in training

Your employees’ skills are what allow them to excel at their jobs. While they certainly already come to your organization ready with a well-developed skillset, there’s always room to improve and grow. That’s where you come in.

Seek out opportunities, like workshops, talks, and mentoring services, that can help your employees reach their full potential. If they choose to use one of these services, be sure to fund their training. This helps employees feel supported by your business as they develop their careers, which also winds up helping your business by supplying it with awesome, well-trained employees.

Listen to team members’ insights

Your team knows best when it comes to the day-to-day, micro-level operations of your company. Sure, management can offer bird’s eye view level insights, but when it comes to understanding what the daily experience of working for your company is like, nobody knows better than individual team members.

So, how can you use this to your advantage? It’s easy: listen to what they have to say. For instance, if long-time employees are worried about some of the newer hiring practices, you might want to gain their insights on how to do a background check that best suits your industry.

Or, if they are having a time working in your current office set-up, it might be worth looking into an office redesign that will be more accommodating to your employee’s creative output.

Give your team a share

People work harder and more authentically when they genuinely care about the company they work for. How can you get them to care? Offer them a stake! If you’re a larger organization, this might mean granting employees stock ownership after a certain time period.

Smaller organizations might start by offering long-time team members a say in larger company decisions, or even the opportunity to manage their own branch of the company when it expands. The exact way that you bring your team members closer in depends on your company, but rest assured that invested employees will be much more interested in your company’s success.

Reward creativity

Creative employees can take an average, mid-tier small business or startup and elevate it to new heights. The right creative idea at the right time can mean the difference between innovating past competition and getting left in the dust.

That means that you should always reward creativity from your team. What counts as creativity? Try these:

• Coming up with a brand-new idea for content
• Noticing a way that your budget could be streamlined
• Deciding on a new client acquisition protocol
• Designing a new email campaign
• Discovering an innovative workaround for a coding bug
• Inventing a new design concept for your business branding
• Writing an algorithm that drastically cuts down on workload

What do these all have in common? They’re cases where employees go above and beyond to add serious value to your company. That should be rewarded.

Look for new opportunities for growth

You should always be on the lookout for places where your employees can improve and help you keep ahead of the competition.

For instance, if you notice that graphic designers at competitor companies are streamlining by using a new piece of software, make sure that your designers are trained up on it as soon as possible. Or, you might find a new accounting method that your bookkeeping team can use to better analyze your spending. Whatever it is, it’s an opportunity for growth.

Your team’s growth and development will ultimately lead to your company’s growth and development. After all, what is a company besides the people who work for it? With the right strategies, you’ll set your organization up for success.