Personal Development: Help Yourself and Your Employees Grow

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Personal Development|Personal Development: Help Yourself and Your Employees GrowPersonal development is crucial in building a holistic workforce made of leaders and employees who have the skills to succeed in all areas of life. This is because it looks beyond just job qualifications to include mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical development. This can be achieved by encouraging activities that build skills to reach the goals and full potential for you and your employees. The result- better, fulfilled and satisfied individuals, with improved strengths and talents for career advancement and personal and career goals achievement.

There are many benefits to gain from pursuing personal development in the workplace. You all are happy when you feel accomplished. When your employees know that you value their personal development, they become more engaged and committed, which leads to a low turnover rate and high productivity. You also become a good leader who can lead a team to achieve high results.

Here are ways that you can help yourself and your employees take on a personal development journey.

1. Encourage learning

Continued learning of new skills is very crucial in the journey of personal development. You can encourage your employees to learn new skills by offering incentives to sign up for classes or reimbursing part of their tuition fees. You can also plan for training such as the latest technologies in the industry. Invite key speakers in different facets of life to give talks in the workplace. This can be a good place for you and your employees to spot opportunities that can be beneficial to your lives. This should be inclusive of all employees. If you have employees in other countries, in Japan, for instance, hired through a Professional Employer Organization (PEO), such as NH Global Partners, or other providers, be sure to use their services to extend the incentives and training opportunities.

2. Allow flexible schedules

The traditional 9-5 work schedule is one of the biggest hindrances to personal development. People have to wake up early to beat the morning traffic, work throughout the day with little time to rest, and get back home late and tired to do anything else.

Allow a more flexible time where all of you can work in your most productive hours. You can also allow them to choose their best place to work from. This way, you all have the rest of the day to carry out personal development activities like attending a class or hitting the gym.

3. Encourage healthy lifestyles

Leading a healthy life is crucial in improving the physical fitness of a person, which is part of the larger personal development. You can encourage healthy meals at work by offering healthy snacks and drinks. If you have given a contract to a restaurant to provide lunch, ask them to serve healthy meals. In addition, encourage physical activities for you and your employees. For instance, you can start biking to work so that your employees can follow suit. Help them pay for gym subscriptions or even have a mini-gym at work complete with showering facilities.

4. Work on more challenging tasks

If a person spends a lot of time in his or her comfort zone, it can be very hard to move forward and grow to the level that one desires. Mostly, it is fear of the unknown that keeps people at the place that they feel comfortable. However, you can break this cocoon by encouraging your employees to take up challenging tasks. Be there to help them through by giving them timely and honest feedback. You can also assign another employee who is skilled in that area to help others through such tasks. Be sure to also take up such tasks from time to time.

5. Foster open communication

People thrive in places where there is open communication. This is because they are able to express themselves without fear of intimidation or punishment. They have no room to bottle up negative feelings, if issues or concerns come up in the workplace, they are able to table them and solve them amicably.

For starters, you can start by encouraging interactions in the workplace. Everyone in the office becomes confident with one another when they know each other better. During meetings, encourage everyone to participate in airing their ideas, opinions, or concerns. This goes a long way in developing public speaking skills.

Conclusion

A lot can be done to encourage personal development for you and your employees. Be sure that your workplace is built on a positive culture. Positivity yields so many other good results, and that is how you will have you and your employees shining all through.

Five Ways to Positively Disrupt Your Career During COVID

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Disrupt your career|Five Ways to Positively Disrupt Your Career During COVIDEconomists and entrepreneurs often tout economic recessions as an optimal time to launch a new business. When markets are down, they become ripe for disruption and roll out the red carpet for innovative services, solutions, and products. Which makes me wonder, do these same truths hold true for individuals (and their careers!) during an economic downturn? My answer is an unequivocal yes! The recipe is simple: a little reflection and a dash of connection, sprinkled with objective, expert guidance will allow you to positively disrupt your career trajectory before the market, or burnout, disrupts you. Take a peek below for some foundational strategies to launch your new career path:

1. Reflect on Your Strengths, Values, and Interests

I can feel the collective eye roll of folks reading this article as they say, “Reflection, really?” Yes. Reflection. Really. I encourage you to carve out five minutes every day to reflect on your values, interests, and strengths. At the intersection of these identity components and what the world needs, is the career path you are meant to start walking. Unsure when and where to start? You are not alone. The next time you find yourself mindlessly scrolling on your phone, set a timer for five minutes and pick a prompt below to get curious about:

  • When I am experiencing joy, what am doing? Who am I alongside? Where am I?
  • Consider your most successful moment(s). How did you get there? What skills did you leverage? Who lifted you up?
  • What gives you energy throughout the day? How do you positively utilize that energy when your tank is overflowing

2. Get Acquainted with the Informational Interview

After a few days of reflection, begin looking for emerging themes. Does your joy seem to stem from a particular set of activities? Do the folks that lift you up embrace similar values or work in a particular industry? Have you rediscovered new interests, but are unsure where to start? This is your chance to acquaint yourself with the informational interview. Start by identifying folks that work in a field that piques your interest or hold positions at places where you’ve considered submitting a resume—then reach out and ask to buy them a virtual cup of coffee. Nervous to make that connection? Here’s a little secret: people love talking about themselves and feeling like their helping someone along. Just be sure to prepare a solid set of questions to ask and be ready to answer some questions about yourself too. Remember, be both interested and interesting! These folks may have an opportunity available for you one day—wouldn’t it be great to be on top of their mind?

3. Cultivate Your Dormant Network

Remember your high school and college friends? The former colleagues at former jobs you commiserated alongside? The super cool professors, bosses, and acquaintances you always wanted to get to know better? Now is the time to reconnect. Our dormant network, comprised of folks we knew in another season of life, is one of the best places to begin expanding and building the community that will support your next career step. Not convinced? Take a peek at this article by Adam Grant, Wharton Faculty and world- renowned organizational psychologist.

4. Revamp Your Resume (and Create a Functional Resume)

When was the last time you updated your resume? As a Board Certified Career Coach, I encourage my clients to update their resumes constantly. Learned a new skill? Add it to the resume. Met a workplace benchmark? Add it to the resume. Began supervising employees? I think you get the picture. When we wait to polish our resumes until we choose (or are forced) to leave our current role, so many of our accomplishments get missed, forgotten, and ultimately left of the resume. Start this process today so when the time comes for you to disrupt your career, you’ve already captured the very best of you! Additionally, if your reflection, informational interviews, and network cultivation have you ready to make a 180-degree career pivot, consider building a functional resume that showcases the transferability of your skills. Take a peek here to learn more about the functional resume.

5. Engage with a Career Coach

Feeling overwhelmed by the previous suggestions? You are most certainly not alone. Exploring our strengths, identifying our values, and creating a new professional path is work that often requires support. Engaging with a Career Coach not only provides an objective lens to see your career in a new way, but ensures that you will have champion and thought partner in your corner throughout the job search process. Updating your collateral materials (resume, cover letter, LinkedIn, etc), searching job boards, and preparing for interviews becomes much more tolerable when you have someone holding you accountable and cheering you along! Want to get started? (en)Courage Coaching would love to meet you! Learn more about us here and connect today!

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor |Katie O’MalleyKatie O’Malley, M.Ed., BCC, is Leadership Coach and Educator with fifteen years of professional experience serving the nonprofit, corporate and higher education sectors. Across these workplaces, Katie noticed her strengths and values consistently steered her toward the support and development of others. In 2013, Katie translated this observation into action and pursued a Master’s Degree in Counseling and Board Certification in Executive and Career Coaching.

Currently, Katie works full time as the Senior Associate Director of Leadership Development at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In this role, Katie designs developmental workshops, provides team and leadership coaching, and contributes to the creation and delivery of leadership education curriculum for students in the Full-Time MBA Program. In her spare time, Katie serves as a Coach and Mentor for start-up businesses through the Polsky Center for Entreprenuership and founded (en)Courage Coaching Chicago, a private coaching practice specializing in career and leadership development for underrepresented populations in the C-Suite. Prior to these roles, Katie served as a coach in leadership development offices at The University of Texas at Austin and DePaul University.

Why Professional Development Is Important

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Professional Development|Why Professional Development Is ImportantMany professionals think that if they have years of experience working in their domain, there is nothing left to learn. But this assumption is wrong, as technology and the world are constantly developing and evolving. And professional development cannot only benefit your career but your personal life too.

On the other side, there might be many employees that want to develop more professionally but their employers do not see this as a necessity. As long as employees have graduated, they know everything they need and nothing new can be learnt.

This is a wrong assumption and businesses which do not see good reasons to invest in the professional development of the employees are halting their development. Professional development is important and it can bring benefits not only to the people who decide to take this step in their career but also to employers. Committing to becoming 1% better every day can change everything and this is valid both for leaders and their teams.

So, why is professional development important?

You Gain More Knowledge

If you take a look at how the state of the world is now, you will notice that almost everything has improved. We have almost eradicated extreme poverty and the entire quality of life has increased. Societies, businesses, and people and improving and evolving. And technology does this too.

Continuous professional development helps you gain more knowledge on the topics that are essential to your career. More knowledge allows you to get a new and fresh perspective on some topics, and this is important when dealing with complex issues or problems. Applying the knowledge you get through training or participation at seminars and conferences in your organization contributes to its development. More knowledge means more resources and perspectives, things that are essential both for leaders and employees.

Gaining more knowledge is a professional goal that can enhance your career, a thing that is true both for leaders and team members. A leader should always seek improvement because he is the person many people look up to, the human that has the power of inspiring and motivating the team.

And also, the one who leads the entire activity and coordinates the team, supporting team members in their efforts of accomplishing the team’s goal. If the leader of a team thinks that professional development is important and he seeks it, the team will follow. And this brings us to the next benefit.

Improved Skills

When looking at job requirements, you can easily notice that you need both hard and soft skills. Almost all jobs imply working in a team and collaborating effectively. Not all people have the opportunity to get involved in activities that help them develop their skills. And even though the actual job means accomplishing your tasks, there might be things the process of solving tasks does not teach you.

But why would someone want to improve their skills? Improved skills help employees organize their time more efficiently which leads to increased productivity. At the same time, they can learn strategies to diffuse and handle conflicts, give feedback, and communicate and collaborate across teams.

If people improve their skills continuously, it helps them work better in a team and boost their productivity and efficiency. This is important not only for their morale but also for the organization. Businesses that put an emphasis on the importance of professional development and encourage their employees to engage in it can save costs and come with new and fresh ideas.

More Engagement, Inspiration, and Loyalty

People like employers that care about them and their opinion and that are ready to invest in them. As knowledge and technology are constantly evolving, more and more employees feel that upskilling is necessary and essential in order to meet job demands. Developing yourself professionally helps you become better at what you are doing.

Of course, when your employer supports you in your quest of improving yourself and continuing your professional development, you get closer to it. Businesses and leaders that choose to invest in their employees can only benefit from it. Employees will be more loyal to the organization and their engagement level will also rise. Companies need to value their employees and support them in their goal of developing professionally.

Employees can get more inspiration from the development opportunities they will benefit from. They will be more open to going the extra mile and put in more effort to solve complex problems at work. At the same time, leaders who continue their professional development will become a source of inspiration for team members. All these contribute to higher job satisfaction that can increase the productivity and efficiency of employees. Studies have found that employees who report being more satisfied with their job are more creative, more open to outside ideas, and more productive.

Achieve Goals

Goals are an essential part of every business strategy and working team. The process of setting goals helps people from the same team be on the same track, find ways to accomplish those goals, and track progress. Goals can keep you motivated and persevering. But as the projects of the team grow in difficulty, so must the skills and expertise do. People need to develop professionally to update their knowledge and gather a new one. This new information will help them achieve their career goals because they gain more expertise in the field.

At the same time, more expertise gives you more self-confidence and motivation. This is something every employee deserves and needs to become a better one. Achieving goals might be a process full of obstacles, and knowing how to handle these complex moments can make the whole situation more approachable. People who continue their professional development develop skills that will help them achieve their career goals. They will also be great and committed team members that will lead the team to the next level.

Investing in the Future

Many businesses and organizations that choose to support their employees in their professional development are choosing to invest in their future. Professional development enhances the skills of the employees and leaders alike. It is a journey many employees want to embark on, but the results are not immediate. Organizations that understand this will benefit the most.

Professional development will easily be noticed in the way employees approach complex problems. It will be seen in the way team members collaborate and communicate within the team and across other teams. Leaders will be more inspiring and encouraging and the execution of tasks will be better. Employees who will see that employers care about their professional development will be more loyal to the organization and will experience a boost in morale. Their job satisfaction will rise and so will their productivity and performance.

Professional development is important because it helps employees and employers alike to grow. And this growth brings only benefits. It is an investment in the future of the business and its people. Keeping up the pace with the knowledge and technology updates will help employees and organizations adapt easier to challenging times and handle complex tasks more efficiently. At the same time, the constantly growing level of expertise within the business will support the complex processes of building the business strategy, executing, and managing it. The business will grow along with its employees who invest in their professional development.

About the Author
StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Tiffany HarperTiffany Harper is an experienced writing guru who’s been working in the B2B sector for several years now. She loves to share her thoughts through blogs and social media, sometimes she helps when somebody needs to get assignment help like SuperiorPapers. For her love of writing, she also provided some consultation while working with the best assignment writing service. Tiffany’s hobbies are playing board games with friends, going to rock concerts, and exploring nature’s marvels.

Let’s Take Your Job Prospects To New Heights

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Are you interested in taking your career to new heights? In doing so, you will be able to obtain a higher income and improve your quality of life. You could also put yourself in the perfect position to manage or even own a business in the near future. If you have the right level of ambition and a strong determination to succeed, there are no clear boundaries on what you might achieve. So, let’s explore some of the best ways that you can boost up your carer.

Fix Your CV

First, you should definitely consider fixing your CV. If you think about it, this could be the first thing that might be blocking you from finding success on the market. Business owners and recruiters could be taking one look at your CV and deciding that you are not the right person for the job. The good news is that there are easy ways to correct your CV and ensure that it is guaranteed to impress any business owner. To do this, you need to start by ensuring that your CV is clear and to the point. It should fit a specific position that you are applying for perfectly which means that you do need to tweak it for each application.

You might also want to think about adding in a USP. This is something that will make your CV stand out from all the other CVs that could be viewed on the same day. Your USP could be anything from a second or third language to a fun example of work experience.

Set Yourself Up For The Right Promotion

Of course, one of the easiest ways to reach new heights in your career is to make sure that you are thinking about how to gain a promotion in a business that you are already a part of. To gain a promotion, you first need to make it known that you are ready for the new challenges and responsibilities that a role like this will include. Once you have done this, you can then think about making sure that you look like the perfect person for the job. It’s absolutely vital that you take the time to go the extra mile for the business and your clients.

Build Your Profile

You should also ensure that you are building up your profile and in particular focusing on your presence online. Be aware that these days it’s quite common for employees to search for a potential recruit rather than waiting for them to apple for a position. They can only do this if you do have a clear identity through social media. While people are often wary of putting themselves out there on social media, doing so could lead to fantastic results and ensure that you can get that call from a company that you haven’t even heard of with a job offer.

Gain new Qualifications

Of course, if you want to make sure that you are more hireable and an option for different positions on the market, then you do need to think about exploring new qualifications. This is easily one of the best ways to grow your career and these days it’s easier than ever to gain the qualifications that you need. You don’t have to spend a fortune or a lot of time getting qualifications. Instead, you can work from home in your spare time while you’re still completing your main job.

Explore Freelancing

Finally, you might want to escape the rat race altogether and instead branch out on your own. It is possible to do this if you become a freelancer. As a freelancer, you will be able to make sure that you can work as much as you like and build a network of clients that love your service. Once you have done this, you could even put the building blocks in place for your own business.

We hope this helps you understand some of the different paths you can take when you are looking to improve your prospects on the job market and in the world of business today. Regardless of whether you are comfortable working for other people or you would like to branch out on your own, there are lots of possibilities available to you here. It’s also a fallacy to say there’s a point where you can no longer pursue a possibility like this. As long as you have the right mindset, nothing, not even your age, should stop you from reaching for new goals in your working life.

The Six Skills Hiring Managers Really Expect of You

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Hiring Manager|The Six Skills Hiring Managers Really Expect of YouJust when the unemployment numbers were looking pretty good, along came the COVID pandemic. The result: millions of people are out of work, trying to make ends meet and wondering how they’re going to land their next professional role.

To make matters worse is with so many people out of work, landing your next job just became that much more difficult because the competition is fierce. Even those applicants who are highly qualified are struggling in their quest to land that new position.

The good news, however, is there are things you can to do help yourself standout. There are many characteristics that hiring managers look for in candidates that go way beyond your qualifications.

Here are six things to remember.

They don’t expect you to be perfect

Think about the last time you went on a job interview. You probably spent hours picking out the perfect outfit, preparing the perfect answers and put together the perfect looking resume. Hiring managers do expect a lot of things, but contrary to popular belief, one thing they do not expect is perfection. In fact, one typo on your cover letter, taking a little longer to respond to a question or other little imperfections shows them that you are human.

They are looking for someone with high EQ (Emotional Intelligence)

Being smart in the traditional sense is all well and good, but how do you interact with customers and colleagues? Do you think before you speak? Are you empathetic toward others? Do you make your point known or go with the crowd? EQ has become the new IQ and it is here to stay.

The most important skill they want you to have is being a problem solver

There are going to be many candidates who are just as qualified as you. The most important skill hiring managers look for is what you do when things go wrong and the pressure is on. Will you have a meltdown or be able to think of a potential solution with the resources available to you? Be ready for the question: Tell me about a time when things didn’t go according to plan and how you solved the problem.

It’s not what you say but how you say it

There will be many candidates who are well-qualified for the position. One characteristic that hiring managers look for is presentation skills. In other words, do you speak with confidence? Are you passionate? Do you offer personal experiences and stories to back up your point? Are you persuasive? Do you make and keep eye contact? How you speak is just as important as what you say.

They expect you to have some knowledge about the company

Do yourself a favor before you go on any job interview: learn a little about the company. You can be the most qualified candidate in the room, but if you show up and don’t know anything about the company, it shows that you are unprepared and leaves hiring mangers wondering just what kind of work ethic you really have. Familiarize yourself with the background of the company, what the current market is like, who the key people are and who are the company’s biggest competitors.

They expect you to send a thank you note

Sending a thank you note after your interview is always a good tactic. This must be done within 24 hours of your interview. It shows the recruiter that you appreciate the time he or she took to conduct the interview, and it also shows a lot about your character. It reveals how you may interact with clients and colleagues.

The takeaway

The job market is very competitive right now and candidates have to do everything in their power to land their next role. This means paying attention to the finer details and honing in on what recruiters and hiring managers are looking for. It also means really focusing in on your people skills. To be the next hire, you have to be the total package.

About the Author

Angela Civitella is a business leadership coach. She is founder of Intinde. www.intinde.com