Everyone can agree that skilled workers are good workers, and the more skills your staff have, the better they’ll be. However, for many small businesses training and development falls by the wayside, due to two big factors – time and cost.
When you’re short on cash, or you always need all hands on deck, it’s hard to find ways to upskill your employees. But there are ways to work around these, and with a bit of creativity you can have a more knowledgeable, skilled, and engaged workforce.
Set development goals
There’s no point in setting up training opportunities for someone who isn’t interested in them. So meet with your staff to discuss development – what would they like to learn and how would it make them better at their jobs? You’ll find a lot of people are keen to learn new skills, either because they think it’ll help their careers, or they have an interest in being able to do something new. Set goals for these engaged staff around learning, and make them part of each employee’s review. Encourage your staff to come to you if they find potential training opportunities, and discuss how you can make them work.
Associations and groups
Many trade associations run training seminars which are low cost or free for those in the association. In addition, there are large numbers of informal groups dedicated to professional development – Meetup.com is full of them. Incentivise your employees to join and attend these groups – they usually meet outside of working hours. You could offer to give time off in lieu for the time they’re at the group; or cover the cost of the employee’s expenses, like food and drink, when they're attending meetings.
Online courses
Online learning is usually cheap or free, and can be done away from the office. You do need to watch out for courses which are just sales pitches disguised as development though. Encourage your employees to search out online courses themselves, and recognise where an employee is particularly driven to upskill – these are the people who get the most value from courses and seminars.
Use workplace mentoring
Get senior staff to take on younger staff as mentees. Through this you teach the newer staff best practices and more skills, and the collaborative nature of mentoring encourages engagement and forges good workplace relationships. Also, as older staff look to retire, they can be sure the people who replace them have the required skills. But don’t just assume this is a one-way street – younger staff members often have skills which they can teach, even to those who have been in the industry for some time.
Team up with other small businesses
Doing in-house training can be expensive, and may not seem worth it if your team is small. So why not reach out to other small businesses in your area? Share the cost, and share the learning.
Teach each other
If you have a particularly motivated group of workers, encourage them to get together and share their knowledge. Whether it’s from their own experience, the result of attending a seminar, doing an online course, or even just doing reading around their area of learning, individual development can become collective development. Again, offer incentives to the staff members who actively participate in knowledge-sharing – the promise of a free lunch can get a lot of people motivated.