The new age
It’s common for businesses to imitate competitor pricing strategies, value propositions and marketing concepts. Leaders must keep ahead of the market trends. While knowing competition is good practice, companies must be alert, as investing too many resources in monitoring rivals is unproductive and costly.
As basic as it may sound, the point I am making is paramount. The current economic climate suggests leaders focus attention on the three dimensions which are distinctively required in business today.
Leadership
People want to be lead in an environment where they feel respected. In other words, leaders must trust their teams to take accurate decision without micro managing. The relationship between an employee and employer is different to how it used to be.
An employee is hired to perform, add certain knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviours, values and expertise to your business which are verified and either accepted or rejected. In return, the employee wants rewards, transparency, freedom and excitement, a fun place to engage and most importantly perform to the organisational expectation. If you are micro-managing the individual then why go to the expense of hiring them in the first place?
So here is the first secret: hire the best – the A Players – coach them well, provide them with full resources and allow them to perform. Leaders must invest 80% of their time coaching and developing teams, being accessible to the employees, leading the team to success with respect and dignity.
Learning and development
Training is pretty much dead, it adds no value. The truth is training does not work, costs a fortune and has no constructive measure. A fresher approach focuses on connecting fun to learning.
How do you link learning and development to productivity? What is the ROI? Once you answer these two vital questions, you will review the way people are developed in your workplace.
However the key point is every individual need knowledge, but growth in knowledge does not come from so called “training”. It actually comes from experience, collaborative learning through engagement, practical application and research. It is the employee’s responsibility to come up with their own development plan if leaders provide the right channels to support learning internally and externally through networking platforms.
Employee engagement and culture
The demand to maintain a high performance workforce is the trend going forward. Employees want to associate with workplaces where they can have fun working in a collaborative environment. The new generation has changed and demands workplaces be more flexible. So it is vital to embed culture as part of your brand. Culture adds value to your goodwill. Take the example of Fortune 100 companies. They all have strong organisational culture and values that not only supports their brand but have a high performance workplace where the employees freely own the brand.