How Do I Create a Path For My Best People To Advance?

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In This Episode

How many good employees do you have on your team?  All of them?  None of them?  Not sure?  We find that most small business owners don’t know how many good employees they have for a simple reason…they aren’t sure what a good employee looks like.

So why are we asking this question about good employees and how does it relate to the topic of our show today?  Well, one of the constant battles for most small business owners is trying to balance the investment of time vs. money.  This is true with things like your Marketing Plan where many owners go with the “do-it-yourself” model vs. investing in outside resources.  The same thing is true when it comes to your people.  Especially your best people.

If you are going to invest your precious time and money into your people, don’t you want to make sure you’re investing in the places that are likely to lead to the best return for you and your business?  During the show we shared some simple examples for ways to get your employees to identify themselves as being good employees or not.  This includes things like setting up a monthly book club and inviting all employees to participate.  Or offering to pay for training for each employee each year, but it’s up to the employees to identify what they would like to be trained in and present it to you.  How many of your employees would take advantage of these opportunities?  All of them?  None of them?  Not sure?

Once you have an idea for who your good people are you can then help them put together customized plans for advancement.  Picture meeting with these good people 1-to-1 on a regular basis (e.g. weekly, monthly, quarterly) to talk about what areas of the business they’d like to learn and what areas should they grow and get better.  These 1-to-1 meetings give you time to focus on that person and their growth and you also get to see how they are progressing and how they think.

If you have nothing in place right now, don’t worry because there is no better time to start than now.  Get started with something simple like a book club or lunch and learn or some individual outside training.  No matter the first step, the key is to get started.

Too many businesses get stuck because they aren’t able to recruit, grow, and retain their own talent.  If you aren’t purposeful about making investments of both time and money into your people then your business is unlikely to grow too far from where it is today.  Or certainly that growth will likely be the results of your efforts vs. those of your team.

 

People, Companies and Resources We Mentioned in the Show

Join Us Next Time

Join us next week when we chat about one of the more common frustrations with your People.  More specifically we will talk about How Do I Get My Team To Take Ownership?

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