The key to creating an effective workforce is to develop the top talent in your organization.

‘Employee development’ initiatives help employees work better and smarter, create greater employee loyalty, and boost your bottom-line.

To develop the key talent in our organization, follow these six steps.

6 Steps to Developing Key Talent in Your Organization:

1. Determine the required outcomes – What are you trying to accomplish? Write down your key requirements so you can focus on the critical issues. Determine how your people can help you achieve your goals. Help your key employees get on the same page so that they can work towards a clear and common vision.

2. Identify the gaps in performance expectations – You need to find the gap between desired performance and actual outcomes. What aren’t employees doing what they are suppose to be doing? Do they not understand what they should be doing? Do they not have the necessary skills to do their jobs? Are they not motivated to meet the performance standards that must be met to stay competitive? Has the communication of these standards not been clearly spelled out? It is very important to identify the gaps and work towards solving these issues. A chain is only as strong as the weakest link, so this step is critical to identify and understand why certain individuals are no measuring up to the organization’s performance expectations.

3. Simplify organizational processes – Often, individual performance is hamstrung by unnecessary organizational processes. Find out how the processes can be simplified to make it easier for employees to deliver optimal performance. Make sure that all employees have the resources to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. Remove any obstacles and roadblocks that are slowing your employees down and hindering their performance.

4. Ensure the right job match – Your key talents can only shine if they are properly matched to their jobs. When an employee’s work style is not aligned with the requirements of his or her job then problems will eventually arise. Use employee assessments to assess employee’s key skills, interests, attitudes, work ethics, values, and work styles so that you can determine the best fit for every individual. This will result in a streamlined organization that can meet even the most difficult of challenges and still be successful.

5. Enhance individual performance – Organizational productivity is a sum of individual productivity. So focus on each individual’s development so that your organization grows as a whole. Key employee development contributes to individual effectiveness by providing each person with a comprehensive assessment of their strengths and weaknesses. Assessments can provide focus on employee developmental issues by building specific plans of action, creating a coaching relationship with a mentor, and providing an opportunity for follow-up evaluations of an individual’s progress in terms of continually improving performance levels.

6. Quantify the results – Measurement is a must. Unless you can measure your benefits, you cannot determine how much you’ve achieved or how much still needs to be done. It also shows what is working and what is not.

How you develop your human capital is the single greatest predictor of your organizational performance. The quality of employee talent directly contributes your organization’s ability to gain and maintain a competitive advantage.

Focus on these 6 steps and you’ll be well on your way to developing the key talent in your organization, and towards creating a competitive advantage in your marketplace.

Tagged with: •

Filed under: Career Development • Human Resources • Leadership Coaching • Organizational Development

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!