Faced with the many changes that are taking place, it is vital for SMEs to become agile and competitive companies. To do this, they must focus on the development of their employees’ skills, who are the lifeblood of the company. Today, we tell you everything about training and development of employee skills.
Benefits of developing employee skills
Every employer dreams of having employees who perform well, who contribute to the company’s agility and competitiveness, and who actively participate in the company’s collective success.
Developing the skills of employees helps to retain them, as it is a lever for commitment. Allowing employees to progress meets their expectations in terms of fulfillment, reinforces their skills and their employability and offers them the possibility to evolve. All this makes them want to stay with the company. They perform better and are more motivated. At the company level, there is less turnover and absenteeism.
Developing the skills of your employees also allows you to maintain the competitiveness of your SME. Organizing your human resources efficiently is necessary to lead your team to success. You must ensure that your teams are trained in the key skills and abilities needed to differentiate yourself and stay ahead of the competition.
Cultivate confidence, curiosity and autonomy
A caring environment where respect, support and the right to make mistakes prevail will allow employees to feel secure and to better value their abilities. This facilitates both the learning process and the development of potential. Better still, you will be able to delegate tasks that will become progressively more important and complex.
Finally, give your employees the desire to be interested in new things and to discover new fields. It is this openness that will foster their desire to continually learn throughout their career.
Use an employee skills development plan
Employee development refers to all training, education and long-term development activities designed to enhance an employee’s capabilities and value to an organization.
A skills development plan is implemented and managed by the company itself. Such a plan is designed primarily to benefit the company, even though employees’ development efforts are based on improving their job skills, so they too will naturally benefit.
It is often up to HR to establish the skills development plan. This plan can be based on employee performance, management by objectives or a company succession plan. It all depends on the purpose of your actions. In all cases, the design of an employee development plan is done by taking into account the needs and objectives of the company on the one hand and the objectives of the employees on the other.
Finally, the right training methods and tools should be chosen. Overall, the right method depends on the type of development plan chosen.
Train employees from the moment they are hired
Proper training and development of employee skills must be considered from the moment the employee arrives. Good skills management must then continue throughout the employee’s career using various tools and mechanisms, including the induction course, skills assessment, training plan, etc. It is therefore from the moment an employee arrives that you must identify his or her training needs and integrate them into your skills development plan.
There is also a need to focus on the personal skills of employees. For a long time, employees were trained exclusively in technical skills. However, in recent years, soft skills training has become more important. Leadership or creativity training is just as effective and serious and can take your company to new horizons.
Regularly monitor progress
You need to implement your skills development plan, measure it regularly and optimize it. You can use the appropriate HR software to establish a regular follow-up of the process.
With regular personalized follow-up, you can monitor the progress of each employee and adjust the trajectory at any time. Don’t hesitate to take stock throughout the year with the help of mini-meetings and objectives that you will readjust.
Promote the transmission of skills
Work should also be done to encourage experience sharing and circular learning. This can be done through discussion and sharing workshops. The transmission of knowledge and information is an effective lever to increase the skills of the team. Each employee can pass on the acquired know-how and skills instead of keeping them for himself.
Which tools to train and develop employees’ skills?
They are important for developing competent employees in the short and long term. Because so much of vocational training is now going digital, you should value the importance of digital training solutions.
There are digital adoption platforms that are effective in continuously developing digital skills. In addition, today, remote work is becoming the norm. Employee development programs or plans must be able to meet the needs of employees in a professional world that is increasingly dominated by technology.
The world is turning irresistibly towards the virtual and is rapidly becoming dematerialized. Therefore, it is important to offer remote training and development options. Knowing that employee productivity in this age depends on digital culture and skills, you need to explain and convince employees on how to work remotely.
Such a solution will allow you to offer training options adapted to mobility. It is to be expected that remote work will become more and more popular over time. It is therefore to your advantage to anticipate and integrate this trend into your employee development plans as much as possible.
by 
