Modern businesses need to be able to onboard new staff quickly and loop them into business processes as quickly as possible. Because new staff may be working a world away, the ability to keep new employees motivated can also be a challenge. Finally, your existing staff needs to stay updated on new sell-from-anywhere tools.
Support Your IT Staff
As your entire staff becomes more mobile, your IT staff will need more skills. Not only will you have to offer 24-hour access to your working files, but your IT staff may need to be able to support new employees through international data connections. Sending your IT team to staffing conferences that offer global skills can quickly turn your business into a magnet for the brightest and best all over the world.
Now is also the time to provide your IT staff with more flexibility. If you have young parents on your IT team and they have the option to work from home, they may be able to offer early morning or late night support on a regular basis. If you need IT employees to be available on the weekends, you may be able to reduce redundancies during your regular business hours and offer staff the chance to split their days off. IT folks are inherently creative. Loop them in for bigger ideas on staying flexible.
Help HR Build New Skills
Of all the training available to your organization, improving your HR training can do wonders for your entire team and make you a sought-after employee in your industry.
HR has been under a tremendous burden since 2020. Whether you’ve been working on your masking policies or expanding your staff base to allow more working from home, HR may have borne the brunt of trying to keep everyone fully informed and satisfied with their working situation. Boosting their skills will lift your business in every way imaginable.
Lift Up Your Support Team
There are folks in your organization who may have not been able to transition fully to working from home, or who had to coordinate the workload between those who did transition to their home office and those who remained in the office. If your support staff stepped up, it’s time to increase both their training and their wages.
If you work with specialty software, now is the time to increase training for your support staff. Additional skills should also be offered to support staff, including
- time management
- public speaking and presentation
- presentation design
Even if you work in a degreed industry and your support staff members are unable to fully return to school, now is the time to offer training to increase their skills. The next flu season is always coming; the more versatile your support staff, the better you can weather these challenges.
From Intern to Associate: Training Young Staff
We tend to focus our industry training on existing staff and train our interns on our processes and products only. However, interns need industry-supportive training as well.
For example, your interns may bring a particular skill to the table that your existing staff didn’t study in their degree work. Such a young employee would greatly benefit from presentation skills and public speaking. Joining a group such as Toastmasters would be an excellent start for all of your interns; the ability to introduce yourself, ask good questions, and speak concisely could benefit every person on your team.
Elevate Those Executives
If your executive pool is loaded with older professionals, the pandemic upheaval may have been extremely problematic. This is more than just Boomers vs. Generation X vs. Millennials. Your oldest employees are facing a very different work landscape than they experienced either in school or in their early careers.
Communication and relationships are always key. As possible, encourage your older employees across the board to consider cross-generational training as a way to better understand how to communicate with younger employees.
Both professional knowledge and soft skills will have an impact on your bottom line. If you are struggling to keep employees or falling behind in hiring the best talent, training for your entire team could be a terrific investment.
