#RedBranchWeekly: The Significance of Employee Development in Today’s Workforce

Growth and development opportunities for your employees are becoming increasingly important for your employee retention rates. According to LinkedIn’s 2019 Workplace Learning Report, 94% of employees stated they would stay at their company longer if the company invested in their growth and development.

You shouldn’t ignore this. Employee morale will plummet if there’s no room for growth at their company. If morale is down, so is engagement and output. To improve your retention and employee engagement, you cannot ignore employee development.

Read More: HR Tech Isn’t Stale: Recruitment & Corporate Training Games

In this edition of #RedBranchWeekly, our partners at ThinkHR, Caliper Corp, and Inspire Software describe various ways to invest in your employees. Read on to get a better grasp of what it takes to foster growth in your employees. 

This week’s #RedBranchWeekly is all about #EmployeeDevelopment. @RealThinkHR, @CaliperCorp, and @InspireSoftware each have their own take. Read more: Share on X

ThinkHR: Ask the Experts: What is the Purpose of a Performance Improvement Plan?

Do you know what a performance improvement plan is?

According to ThinkHR, “a performance improvement plan:

• specifies your expectations for employee performance
• defines what success looks like going forward
• sets regular meetings with the employee to discuss their progress
• explains the consequences of failing to make and sustain performance improvements as outlined in the plan.”

Chances are, it could change the way employees perform and grow throughout your organization. A performance improvement plan helps set expectations you have for your employees. 

Different aspects of such a plan, like defining what success might look like for your employees moving forward or setting regular meetings with employees to discuss their progress, make it a great tool for employee growth.

Read More: What Can Be Learned From Project Management Training 

By implementing a performance improvement plan within your organization, you’ll see tremendous improvements in your employees’ ability to meet goals. Still, it’s essential that you curve your plan to align with your business’ needs — and stick with it. With the expectations and feedback, a performance improvement plan provides, employees will be motivated to grow, learn, and improve their skillsets. For more on implementing effective PIPs, check out ThinkHR’s latest article here.

Do you have a #PerformanceImprovement plan in place? @RealThinkHR tells you the benefits of such a plan in this week’s #RedBranchWeekly! Check it out here: Share on X

Caliper Corp: How to Hire for Success in Sales

It isn’t an easy task to recruit for sales. These roles require hard-to-find soft skills. Also, if you’re hiring sales candidates that don’t fit within your current sales teams, it can be even more challenging to keep them at your company for long. The employee turnover rate for sales is triple the average employee rate. What can companies do to avoid falling in line with this statistic?  

If there’s nowhere for sales pros to grow, they’ll start to question their place in the organization.

“Did you know that less than 45% of companies have a formal sales training process? Given the lack of training and development structure in sales, it’s easy to see why the turnover rate is so high. Companies tend to invest more heavily in recruiting and hiring activities than on the processes and programs that focus on developing employees and keeping them engaged. However, investing in training and development will likely improve retention and increase your company’s margin.”

Give them the potential to grow and further their careers, and employees will be much more likely to become engaged with their careers and increase their overall performance. In Caliper’s latest article, they offer suggestions to improve your sales retention.

#Recruiting for sales is no easy task. @CaliperCorp has tips that can change that in this week’s #RedBranchWeekly. Learn more here: Share on X

Inspire Software: Is Hiring for Culture Fit Doing More Harm Than Good?

Most HR leaders worry about their company culture, that’s only normal. If your culture is tarnished, it could hurt more areas than your employee’s engagement levels. Given that, it only makes sense you’d want to hire someone who fits into your culture, right?

The experts at Inspire Software say this could hurt you more than you know.

“Effective and lasting cultures come from within. Leading by example and developing employees through continuous conversations, leadership training, and overall performance development is the key to true cultural transformation.

Fewer than 38% of executives understand their organizational culture. They know culture is important, but they don’t understand what it is or how to promote culture amongst employees.”

When implemented incorrectly, hiring solely for culture can stifle growth. Whether you agree with them or not, hearing multiple sides of any discussion could provide some information you haven’t considered. Give this one a look and see where you stand.

Is #CultureFit more trouble than it’s worth? @InspireSoftware thinks so. Find out why and more in this week’s #RedBranchWeekly. Share on X

Want to see your company covered in a future #RedBranchWeekly? Get in touch with us @RedBranch!