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Leveraging the skills of your employees is not only highly motivating and positively challenging for the employees themselves, but it also brings numerous benefits to the team and the organization. If you suddenly ask an account manager to solve technical problems, it can be both frustrating for the person involved and result in poor job performance. Therefore, it is very important to look not only at where in the organization someone is needed, but more importantly, where you can use this person effectively.
You will notice that productivity, performance, engagement, motivation and job happiness will increase significantly once you allow employees to work within their strengths. In this blog, I discuss some useful tips you can focus on so that you will soon have a high functioning and happy team.
1. Offer development opportunities
Offer your employees ongoing opportunities to continue to develop and improve their skills. Facilitate various opportunities for continuing education and training, both internally and externally, depending on the individual needs of your team members. Internally, engaging workshops, seminars and in-house training sessions can be organized to promote specific skills and knowledge. Externally, employees have the opportunity to participate in external courses and online training sessions that allow them to specialize and stay up-to-date with the latest developments in their field. By offering these continuous opportunities, you enable your employees to further develop their strengths and utilize their skills even more effectively.
2. Commit to diversity and inclusion
Diversity brings different skills. Foster an inclusive culture where all team members are encouraged to use their unique talents. Do not focus on what an employee cannot do, but rather on their strengths. Leverage your employees' skills as a team to collectively achieve goals. For example, is an employee less strong at communication, but excels at solving technical problems? Great! Then let that person primarily perform these tasks and don't burden them with connecting different teams.
3. Maintain regular contact
Facilitate regular conversations with employees to discuss needs and skills, including strengths and areas for improvement. This encourages a proactive approach to aligning individual development goals. By reviewing this regularly, you ensure that each team member is in the right place. Should that not be the case, it provides an opportunity to collectively look for ways to use talents more effectively within the organization.
4. Encourage a Feedback Culture
Encouraging feedback within the team is not only a tool for measuring performance, but also a powerful way to encourage employees to make full use of their skills. By encouraging a culture of openness and constructive feedback, employees experience support in their development. Feedback provides insight into their strengths and points to areas where they may need to improve, allowing them to work at their full potential.
5. Develop a culture of appreciation
Create a positive work environment that encourages sharing and improving skills. Give compliments regularly and recognize the contributions of individuals. This way they feel appreciated and experience that their strengths are seen. This is highly motivating and contributes to job happiness and productivity. For example, organize regular team meetings where successes are shared. Also encourage peer-to-peer recognition, where team members compliment each other on their contributions. Remember to compliment each other throughout the process as well, not only in achieving successes, but also for the hard work put in to achieve those goals.
