Motivation and Employee Development

Employee development refers to initiatives taken by organizations to constantly enhance their employees’ skills and upgrade their existing knowledge with time. Employee development activities and trainings make an individual self dependent and prepare him/her for unforeseen circumstances. Employees as a result of trainings can deliver their level best and contribute more effectively towards the organization.

Motivation is one of the key factors which help in extracting the best out of employees. You really need to make your employees feel important in the system if you want them to perform well. Motivation plays an essential role in employee development.

Encourage employees to participate in trainings, seminars, conferences or any other initiatives which would help them acquire new learnings. Human resource professionals or team managers need to convince employees as to how various training programs would help them develop their skills and benefit them in the long run.

Human resource professionals need to interact with the employees and explain them how training programs would help them grow both professionally as well as personally. As a human resource professional your role is not just to design training programs or employee development activities but also motivate employees to attend the same with a smile.

Don’t expect everyone to be present at the venue just because you have sent an email or circulated a poster among the employees. You really need to highlight the importance of training programs and what all new skills, knowledge or learnings an individual can acquire as a result of such trainings. Let employees come up with their problems and challenges they face in their daily work.

Encourage a learning culture in your organization where employees feel motivated to undergo various trainings and inculcate new learnings. Employees ought to have liberty of expressing their thoughts and sharing their ideas. Let them come up with innovative ideas, concepts and solutions. Do not under estimate any employee. You really do not know when someone might come up with a brilliant idea. Appreciate them whenever they perform any extraordinary task. Make them feel that they are indispensable resources for the organization.

Be there for your team. You really need to make your employees feel that you are there with them always. This way an employee not only feels motivated to participate in various events and trainings but also develops a sense of loyalty and attachment towards the organization.

Provide certificates of participation to employees who attend the training programs. Give them some kind of benefits in form of promotions, added responsibilities, monetary benefits and so on. Make them feel a little special. Let others who did not attend trainings feel that they missed out something really important.

As a team manager your job is to provide adequate growth opportunities to your employees. Help employees in achieving more. Review their results on a regular basis. Give them necessary feedbacks and tell them where all they are lacking. Never ever demotivate them. Criticism leads to frustration and kills the team morale. Guide them and suggest as to how they can overcome the gap between their current stage and desired stage. Motivate them to register for various online course materials, forums which would groom them and prepare them for future.

You really need to give that extra push to your employees for them to take employee development activities and training programs seriously. Till what time you can run after their lives? After all even they need to be serious about their own career.