6 Ways to upskill and engage employees

When we reflect on about the amount of transformation that people need to adapt to in the workplace - new technologies, new business models, and more - the importance of capitalizing in the learning and development of employees at all levels is crystal clear!
Organisation learning helps you to bring and retain top performers, generate growth and enrichment for existing employees, and foster employee engagement. As beneficial as workforce education can be to your organization, simply executing a program doesn’t promise that your employees will take advantage of it. You really need to motivate them to keep learning and evolving.
Managing everyday tasks with learning and development is an endless struggle for employers and employees. Apart from completing your daily deliverables, enough time and intent be spent on professional development of the employee.

The necessity to advance learning and development is the top-rated trend in Deloitte’s 2019 Global Human Capital Trends report. The Workplace Learning Report of Linkedin suggests that 94% of employees would stay longer with a company if that company participated in their learning and development.
Continuous learning permits employees to grow and nurture the skills needed as industries and technology evolve, which is good for both the employee and the employer. As the employee grows, the organization gains a more trained and dedicated employee. 
Here are a few ways to motivate your employees to learn so they can grow and help you grow!
1.Develop a Learning Culture:
When learning becomes implanted in your culture, it becomes an expectation for employees rather than something they take upon themselves. In this way, you can make sure that new joinees aren’t just the right fit for a role, but that they also have a learning mindset that will help them to continue learning and be fruitful in their role. In order for a learning culture to progress, there needs to be a thoughtful effort behind forming good team and organizational culture. A progressive and healthy learning culture creates a foundation of trust, conviction and ownership, which is indeed important for leaders looking to bring the best out of their teams.
Set clear expectations for both your employees and team leaders. How often should they be meeting to discuss personal and professional progress? By scheduling steady rhythms for these meetings, you keep learning and development top of mind for everybody in your organization.
2.Recognize achievements:
One important employee motivation strategy is to create an office culture that values learning and shares that value in a tangible way. Appreciate employees who complete courses/tasks or required learning sessions. Managers do play a pivotal role in motivating the employees towards their work and to up their learning curve. A fine balance between monetary and non-monetary reward mechanism will elevate the objective. Design your organisation’s reward system to provide rewards and recognition to employees when they go above and beyond set benchmarks. When an employee makes a major achievement at work, make sure they are suitably appreciated and rewarded for it.
3.Provide Career Paths:
It’s important to create vibrant career paths and make them known to your employees. By providing a clear end goal for your employees, you can efficiently encourage them and show them payoff for their commitment to growth either by moving up in the department or moving across within the organization. When a feasible career path is clear for your employees, there is more motivation and enticement to learn and develop the skills essential to be fruitful in the role. After discussing development with your employees, you may learn that your employee isn’t clear on where they’d like to end up in the organization. This is a great opportunity to coach your employee, to help them appreciate their skills, strengths, and interests so they can regulate where they might like to end up in the long-run. People learn when they feel obliged to, such as when they’re zealous about a subject or when it’s a prerequisite for career growth. When you boost employee participation in these conversations, you increase the probability that they’ll be motivated to grow into the role you’ve jointly determined to be a fit for them.
4.Understand What Energises Your Employees:
The saying “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” is a great saying that falls short in practice. The paradox is we all may have different priorities and expectations. We don’t all have the same needs and ambitions. As a result, it’s impractical to take a one-size-fits-all tactic to motivate your employees. Several factors can affect workplace behaviors and triggers: Power, extraversion , curiosity and patience, and formal outlook. To successfully motivate an employee, it’s key for managers to understand what energises that employee.
Employees who lead with power and supremacy may be motivated by chances to compete.
Those energised by extraversion and team belongingness may be motivated by learning in a group.
Employees driven by patience and curiosity may be driven when they know the reason behind the request - the why.
Those motivated by formality and organised patterns may need to know what’s expected as well as what’s next, as they like to make sure things are done just right.
By focusing on what an individual needs and what drives them, you upsurge the probability of positively motivating them to learn and grow.
5.Create a Formal Training Program:
Similar to creating a learning culture, presenting formal training programs can set the expectation for learning and development from all employees. While some trainings may be optional, some other trainings may be a compulsory requirement for maintaining a role or moving up within a department. Formal training gives employees a clear understanding of how they might progress within the company, supporting their career development and professional growth.
6.Consider cross-departmental training:
Encourage employees who work in diverse departments to learn from each other. A holistic approach to workplace learning makes for employees who not only understand their own jobs, but understand the organization as a whole. A cross-trained employee benefits by having a broader skill set that can be added to a resume when they decide to move on or, better yet, they can leverage themselves into a raise or promotion within your company in the future
Inherently, learning is exciting. But for the less educationally motivated, it can be a struggle, so get artistic. Not all learning takes place in a classroom or a work cubicle. Consider planning a trip to a relevant interactive place, or executing monthly learning lunches. Sometimes, the less something feels like educating, the more effective it can be.
If you wish to create a lively and successful business, one of the most important parts of that is cultivating an environment where employees are fortified to develop new skills and deepen existing ones. Investing in your employees in this way always provides a great return, in the form of better output, efficiency and goodwill generated for the company in exchange for supporting their career development.