Employee engagement and development are at the forefront of employee retention within frontline companies. Encouraging learning and career advancement in the workplace is the key to unlocking employees' full potential and reducing turnover rates.

And with so many options for technological solutions to help improve career development, including on the job training and gamification solutions, it's a wonder why more companies don't harness the power of various employee development methods.

We're going to take a look at the why and how of employee development and how it can greatly help business outcomes in more ways than you might even realize.

As frontline employers continue to struggle with high turnover rates, 54% of employees are still considering quitting their jobs. This is especially true in the deskless workforce, although the issue does affect all industries.

The effect of constant resignations leads to continuous and repetitive training and re-skilling of new hires. The impact of this can be felt everywhere from the bottom line of the company, with the costs of hiring and training, through to staff morale and an increasing skills gap.

And with Gen-Z and Millennials more conscious of their impact on the world, including the world of work, attracting and retaining talent is becoming a struggle for almost all industries.

In fact, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 63% of workers who quit their jobs did so due to the lack of opportunities for advancement.

In addition to this, offering professional development opportunities within a company can attract a high caliber of talent; improve the competitiveness of a business in both their industry and the job market; and ensure that the company remains technically and technologically up to date. (report)

So, where are companies missing the mark?  And perhaps more importantly, what is employee potential, how do you identify it?

And then - of course - how do you offer the right development opportunities that encourage employees not just to take up the opportunity and learn new skills, but also to remain in the job?

There is a famous quote by Richard Branson that you've probably seen or heard countless times.

"Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to"

Whether that has become a cliche or not, it remains a startlingly lucid and useful piece of business advice.

By this definition, Branson is suggesting that a business should train people to excel at their jobs and to be able to feel that they've achieved something great in their own personal development.

But, of course, you've also made such a great business culture that they find it hard to say goodbye...

Obviously when it comes to defining employee potential, it will depend massively on your industry, their job roles and factors such as transferable skills or skill gaps in your workplace.

This might mean that warehouse operatives learn manual handling and first aid as standard. But then they might also be able to learn inventory management, leadership skills or even how to manage the software that your shop floor uses.

The benefits of promoting from within an organization

While many businesses will spend money and time hunting for the perfect hires, sometimes the answer is closer than we think.

Often, internal opportunities are overlooked by both employers and employees which raises the failing element of employee engagement and development. And with more businesses than ever offering remote, hybrid or deskless working, employers are increasingly now encouraged to optimize their workforce training strategies in line with the needs of their workforces.

Putting it simply: leveling up the skills of your trusted and loyal employees can help to improve employee engagement as well as save the HR department the challenge of hiring new employees.

How to promote learning and develop growth mindsets

A survey conducted among 600 frontline workers, across four countries and various industries, indicated that 56% of workers felt that training would help them feel more connected to their companies’ goals, missions and values.

Offering access to courses and training programs is obviously one of the most accessible and common ways to an employee development program. Whether this is one to one or group training, or online training courses, it doesn't matter.

Another way to facilitate on the job training is adding workplace digital signage to a company’s training and development strategy. This can create an open and transparent workplace that helps boost the retention of talent.

Workplace digital signage can help employers and employees engage better by enabling deskless workers to have a voice in professional areas they feel are lacking and require training. 

Getting employees to complete polls on the type of training they require and displaying the feedback on industrial screens around the workplace, might also give other employees a sense of confidence to put a foot forward.

How to create an effective employee development program

Developing employees skills is more than just setting up a training course. You also need to motivate employees to participate, support them throughout the process and even offer a tangible reward at the end to help them see and understand what the result is.

These are the steps you'll need to take to create an employee development plan and to help you employees grow and embrace their potential.

Primarily, the idea is to develop employees skills in line with the business goals. If a business finds itself struggling to recruit in certain areas, perhaps this is an opportunity to offer employee learning to fill these gaps.

Most current employees of a company will be open to improving their own skill set with a view to a better career path, if they can see how it would benefit them and the company.

Truthfully, not every role or skills gap may have the potential to be filled via your employee development plans - and that might just be the way it is. For example, you might have a warehouse full of licensed forklift drivers or health and safety inspectors, but no access to qualified engineers. This is obviously not going to be something you can train internally for.

But you might be able to train some operatives up on forklift maintenance for example.

Business managers should take the time to sit down with their HR department and senior leadership to identify what the skills are and whether it's feasible to train internally.

A business doesn't always need to pay for an external course to develop employees. Could they be mentored internally to improve skills?

Could you even train some staff in leadership roles while they also teach other individual employees the skills to progress?

In some instances, a recognized and accredited training course might be the only way. In which case you'll need to identify which is best suited for your employee development activities.

But, there might be opportunities for employees to develop skills on the job, through mentorship programs, via a program of constructive feedback or even encouraging extracurricular development of skills.

An example of extracurricular skills development is in something such as language learning, which is best done in free time. For employees who commit the time to learn outside of work, they could be rewarded by the company or compensated for the time and expense they invested.

Keeping employees engaged in the learning culture is a huge part of a professional development program.

When it comes to internal development programs, you'll want to keep courses focused and use technology to both deliver a quality experience and better outcomes.

Elearning is often done via a laptop. But group presentations, or even explaining methods and processes to an individual can be greatly improved using a larger display.

Some fun and engaging methods of training using digital signage for training can include:

Access to performance metrics and dashboards

Games and leaderboards (tools like Bonusly are great for this)

In short, you don't need to have people sit in tedious classroom settings or spend hours answering questions on an e-learning course. There are various ways to leverage more engaging technology which can significantly improve the employee experience with developing their potential.

Have you ever left a training session and immediately forgotten what you’ve learned, or the information slowly deteriorates over a short period? Many workers feel exactly the same.

According to Talentcard’s survey, 80% of employees have indicated that they prefer short training sessions instead of long training events, and 32% admitted that they forget their training after 30 days of completing the course.

So, when optimizing a company’s training and development strategy, it’s wise for companies to also adopt a more modern approach when preparing training materials as well as considering employees’ schedules and locations.

Training must become as flexible as the deskless worker - creating meaningful and bitesize training material means they can digest information while on the move. No more post-training amnesia.

On occasion, longer training sessions will still be necessary to keep employees up to date on developments and new methodologies, but keeping employees visually entertained with industrial screens where the training content will display or even live training broadcasts, will help reduce learning fatigue and increase participation.

When employees aren’t stuck in a training room, digital signage with built-in integrations can help place visual training bits on a loop on industrial display screens where deskless workers are most prone to take a break or engage with colleagues - which will keep them alert and engaged. 

It's all well and good helping your employees learn a new skill. But they need to know where it fits into their current job, or how it can help them move forward into future roles.

Many people will see the benefit of having an extra skill on their CV. But will they earn new responsibilities as a result of their training? You also want to ask”

Does completing a development program mean they will be put forward for a promotion, or earn some kind of bonus?

Does the company see them as future leaders, or line managers?

And how will the organization support employees to develop further and reach their potential?

As a business, it's a good idea to provide both clear expectations from the training, and some achievable goals for the individuals in question.

Using workplace digital signage to develop employees

Fun fact: internal hires can be up to six times more effective than other methods of hiring, according to the 2022 HR stats. And hiring existing employees is beneficial as they already understand the company culture, processes, missions and objectives (with the right training) – areas that new candidates need time to learn and adapt to.

Nurturing employees to appreciate their job and to progress within their role also has a number of benefits for the company, including:

Workplace digital signage is more than just a TV screen in an office or warehouse. Increasingly companies are realizing that digital displays are highly engaging sources of information that can be used for a diverse range of applications with an employee focus.

Advertising vacancies within the workplace

Promoting workshops and learning seminars or webinars

Announcing new projects and encourage peer involvement

Frequently reminding employees of the company’s values, mission and objectives

Sharing fun company culture elements such as social media posts or gamification

Scale and streamline your workforce’s training and development with ScreenCloud’s digital signage solutions. Request a demo to find the most suitable and affordable solutions for your workforce.

Discover how to plan and develop employee potential development programs in the workplace and find out how they can be the key to dynamic growth in business.

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Unlock Your Employees’ Full Potential with Digital Signage in the Workplace

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