Blog: Why is it important to upskill your employees?
Assuming the presence of right intentions, the only real hurdle standing between a great job done and a mediocre one is knowledge deficit.
When I first read this, it made a tremendous impact on my thinking. It was like a significant piece in a jigsaw puzzle that explained a lot of mediocrity that existed all around us. Most often we doubt the intention of people, especially if they are reporting to us. The first question that bubbles out of our irritation when we deal with a shoddy job of an employee is ‘Do they even want to do well?’ The question to be asked however is ‘Do they know enough to do it well?’
Perfection is subjective. Something that looks perfect in your eyes could be incomplete in a million ways in the eyes of another. A well-intentioned employee with the right attitude towards work would want to accomplish something which is perfect in their eyes. It is not knowing how to better the job that keeps them from doing a job which is perfect from everyone’s perspective.
Ironically, this subjectiveness of perfection is something which is not comprehended by the employee or the employer and hence mishandled. The gap here is of knowledge and not intention. Mistaking it for lack of intent is what causes many issues in working relationships. This is not to say that sub-par intentions don’t exist. Being able to distinguish between both is of vital importance.
This line of enquiry takes us to some of the reasons why the knowledge gap is not identified or addressed.
We expect an employee to know his job – When you hire someone, you expect that they have the necessary skills to execute the job. They perhaps do as well. But every job role is different in its finer but crucial details. The same role in her previous job would have required a different skill set depending on the scale or specifics of the job. What she requires in your job might be different. This brings us to the importance of identifying and finding means to fix this knowledge gap at the earliest. A self-motivated employee might be able to intuitively identify by herself what the problem is and seek help or help herself to get better at it. But your responsibility as a leader is to be vigilant enough and observe closely where she could be helped; preferably in the initial phase of induction itself.
We assume ‘If he did not know his job he would ask for help!’ – Most often people do not know that they do not know something and would be left wondering why the work they do is never acknowledged, accepted or appreciated. The other situation is where a conscientious employee feeling bad about not knowing how to do something but reluctant to seek help for fear of being perceived entirely incompetent or insufficient. In both cases, it becomes the responsibility of their leader not to make any assumptions nor resort to shaming them but, dig deeper to identify the problem areas through an open channel of communication.
Now that we have identified a real problem exists with the knowledge gaps in the employees, what can we do to change the situation? Read on…
Integrate small modules of learning and knowledge transfer into their routine work schedule – These are times when work environments are of high pressure and time sells at a premium. People are expected to ‘hit the road running’ and there is really very little time or opportunity for detailed training or practice for new joiners in an organization. What would work instead, are bite sized training modules of 15 minutes to half an hour integrated into their daily work schedule. This makes learning regular, consistent and at the same time it does not overwhelm the employees. It could be done as a talk or lecture-demonstration by a subject matter expert or an intranet training module into which they need to log in everyday and complete as a task.
Help the employee by assigning a mentor – This is a great way in which some successful organizations of the world bring their employees up the learning curve. It could be an internal mentor or for senior management roles it could be done by hiring external mentors who would be able to help and course correct the person. Mentoring is an excellent training methodology which makes the employee a more valuable asset to the organization. The added advantage is that for the employee this acts as a great personal development opportunity. This would not only make him better equipped to handle his own role better but also enriches him enough for pursuing future career aspirations. Such initiatives by the leadership brings in with it, employee loyalty of high standards.
Encourage and incentivize self-initiated learning – If the employees are given targets and incentives for knowledge upgrades or better still if it becomes part of their KPIs then you would be able to witness a huge upswing in how they take to learning. This is another thing that successful organizations and leaders seem to be doing to get the best out of their employees. They realize that an under-skilled employee can be a liability and lead to loss of productivity. They have established learning and development departments in their organizations whose key focus is on fixing this particular need. L&D is not an auxiliary need but a primary one that needs as much attention as the core job an employee is expected to do. Knowledge upskilling should ideally be part of their performance metrics.
Allow independent handling of real-life work challenges which are low on risk and criticality combined with real time monitoring – Practice is indeed what makes a person perfect. Weeks and months of classroom learning can be condensed into a few hours of practical experience. Hours of online study and big dollars spent on learning how to make a PowerPoint presentation for example cannot give a person the expertise that he gets when he tries to make an actual one. Exploring comes naturally to humans. That is how we moved across continents and seas and made our homes in distant lands. Hence a well-monitored real activity which forms part of practical experience in a low risk, non-critical area can be very beneficial.
Take the shame out of ‘not knowing’ and encourage building of a learning centric work environment – Asking doubts or admitting that you don’t know are not shameful acts. That is an indication that the person is actually brave and is willing to learn something they don’t know at the risk of being perceived ignorant. The acceptance of people who are keen to learn and fostering an organizational environment which not only accepts but assists such a person should be part of a leader’s vision.
Invest in or bring in technological innovations for easier and better learning opportunities – The education and learning landscape has been revolutionized by technology and this has to be taken cognizance of by leaders and entrepreneurs. If your enterprise operates on a bigger scale and span, you can consider developing custom e-learning solutions for your company. For establishments that are smaller in size there are a multitude of readymade options which can bring in huge advantages in the employee upskilling efforts. The organization can also look at funding or subsidizing the courses independently undertaken by employees.
If you are looking for any mentoring help for your team or if you are looking at equipping yourselves with a motivated, well-trained set of smart employees, do write to us at harish@harishrao.world to know how we can help you with it. We understand the difference the right mentoring and training can make to a person’s productivity. We would love to work with you on this or any other business coaching needs you may have!
