Employee growth is a tough topic. Some companies thrive on training employees; they set career paths and prepare training programs to nurture employees’ potential and boost their knowledge and leadership skills. Some companies don’t do it at all. But let’s face it – in the modern workplace, this is a must.
Your employer should care about employee growth if they want the company to grow, be competitive in the market, get new clients and maintain current collaborations. So it’s the CEOs and managers’ job to create growth opportunities for the employees to have a productive work environment. There is no way around it.
How it helps in increasing the involvement and motivation of a team? Why are we putting such an emphasis on growth? Let’s get right into it.
We all know that growth at work is important
Employee training and development (also called learning and development) provides the staff with opportunities to acquire knowledge and new skills or sharpen the existing ones. Thanks to that, we can improve our performance at work or prepare ourselves for new responsibilities or roles.
There are various types and methods of such learning, thanks to which we can adapt the one that fits the employee’s needs. This, in turn, ensures that the team learns something more effectively because it’s in the format they prefer.
The benefits of employee training and development
- Improvement in performance
- Boosted employee’s satisfaction
- Boosted productivity & motivation
- More autonomy (self-driven)
- Improved employee engagement
As you can see, the benefits are many – from increased involvement in organizations and projects to self-driven development.
What types of employee training and development exist?
Employee training is available in many different ways. The implementation and delivery of educational and professional skills are based on the organization’s needs, target audience, knowledge or skills learned, and learning style. The more common types of staff training are:
Orientation training
This is one of the basic training carried out to introduce a new person to the company. It involves getting to know the organizational matters, some hire paperwork, administrative procedures, as well as company policies and culture.
Onboarding training
This training program is definitely longer than the previous one. It’s about familiarizing the new employee with tools and processes, getting to know the team (as a part of team building), responsibilities, and more. In short, everything you need to do your job well.
Technical skills training
It’s about improving your skills. Most of the time, technical training is held by a senior employee to train junior staff.
Soft skills training
I can’t stress enough the importance of soft skills, really. They’re essential. Not only for a designer who creates user flow but also for developers to better understand users, theirs needs, and behaviors. Plus, it allows people to collaborate better within the team and the clients as well as manage risks and conflicts.
How can organizations build employee training and development programs?
Organizational training programs have to begin with need assessment. This will uncover specific skill gaps that need to be filled by training.
Our way of development initiatives
At Gorrion, we put a strong emphasis on employee development programs as well as talent development and employee growth.
Hence, we have a variety of different activities so that everyone find something for themselves. It’s one of the ways to motivate and engage teams in projects.
Mentoring system
At the beginning of the journey, every new Gorrion gets a mentor to guide him or her through our processes and tools. This is part of our onboarding process. But, it doesn’t end here. Later on, mentors help mentees with their career development – they help them grow and reach their goals. It’s essentially what ensures an effective and successful growth process. Thanks to this, there’s less pressure, more practice, and better results.
More about it in 5 things you need to know about our onboarding process.
Monthly developer meetings
This is one of our self-driven development initiatives. Each month we have developer meetings with 2 or 3 presentations on a certain topic. The presentation’s subjects are listed on the ClickUp channel and vary from updates to new tools or libraries. What’s great about this method is that each speaker, when preparing a presentation, has to dig deep into the issue:
- research a given matter,
- get to know all the necessary info,
- put together a tangible example to work on.
In other words, developers learn about a given library or tool and can implement it in the project later to improve it more. So it’s a win-win.
Project presentations
Every now and then, we hold project presentations to share the team’s experience. So we can learn about the team, the product they build, the solutions they implement, and the challenges they hold. It’s a great time to get to know more about the project and learn something more.
Have a project in mind?
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Internal workshops
We like to carry out practical workshops whenever we have a chance (and time). In 2021, we had Prisma workshop and started on our microservices series.
Plus, sometimes, the workshops are as a form of monthly developer meetings to make it more entertaining.
Gorrion Unplugged
This one is pretty special. It’s an open meetup with guests and Gorrions who carry out their presentations in the dark with only Christmas lights on. It’s a great way to share knowledge, exchange ideas and see what it’s like to be a part of the Gorrion team.
How did it all start, and how does such even look like? Read about it in When the lights go out – the story of Gorrion Unplugged.
Publications
We don’t limit ourselves to certain media. As a part of employee development, we also write articles on our blog and other platforms (hackernoon, dev.to, Medium). From design through business-related issues, project management tips to technical novelties.
Slack channel
There’s also a dedicated Slack channel for quick updates. We can find all the bits and pieces of information about new libraries, tools, presentations, conclusions, and thoughts there. Everything in one place is arranged in an orderly manner.
Conclusion
As you can see, we don’t neglect the power of training and development at the workplace. Constant growth is one of the main values that we take care of on a daily basis. It allows us to acquire new skills, sharpen the existing ones, boost productivity and innovative thinking, mitigate risks and take a unique perspective in the project.
Join us! Check out our career section and apply now!
Have a project in mind?
Let’s meet - book a free consultation and we’ll get back to you within 24 hrs.
Ela writes about the fundamentals of great development, project management approaches, ways to develop a proof of concept or an MVP, UX, our company culture, and many other things happening in Gorrion.
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