Developing Your People: The Key to a Successful In-plant Team

Employee training and development are essential, 
but too often they are overlooked. Here are some ideas to help you keep your staff educated and motivated.

Together

Everyone

Achieves

More

To make this hold true, it is imperative that we develop the people on our teams. HR experts make a distinction between training (improving people's skills in their current job) and development (improving skills for future roles). Both training and development are essential and can be interrelated. We train and develop our people though a two-step process:

• Education (Learning what to do).

• Application (Doing what you learned).

What follows are 15 specific tools we can use to train and develop our people.

College/University Classes

As a long-time university instructor I can attest to the value of having your people take classes to broaden their knowledge and sharpen their basic skills. Whether a person is degree-oriented or not, taking classes in management, operations, human resources, finance, information technology, etc. provides an educational foundation that enhances a person's ability to excel at doing real work back at the work place. My company (Portland General Electric) understands the value of formal education and offers a tuition reimbursement program for employees.

In-house Classes

Larger companies often have in-house classes available on a variety of useful topics. Work with your HR folks—and don't be bashful about suggesting classes that would be of value to people on your team and throughout the organization.

External Seminars and Webinars

There are a number of companies (e.g. Fred Pryor, CareerTrack, SkillPath, AMA) that offer one- or two-day seminars on useful topics ranging from working with vendors, to time management to dealing with difficult employees. I build in dollars in my budget to cover some classes for employees, and I urge you to do so too.

Conferences

Participating in conferences, like the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) conference, is a great investment and has many benefits. I am actively involved in conferences and get some of my people involved because nothing matches the opportunities at a good conference: the ability to learn best practices from the top leaders and practitioners in the industry; the ability to learn and see in action the latest technology; the ability to network with peers, vendors and industry experts; and the stimulation to go back home and move your operation to a higher level of excellence. Some may say they can't afford to attend a conference—I would say, how can you afford not to?