How HR Can Help to Develop Employees Remotely

 We’ve all heard and read plenty about “The Great Resignation” and how that is leaving significant skills gaps within businesses in almost every sector. Beside unprecedented salary increases, one of the reasons your talent could be looking elsewhere is the opportunity for further personal and professional development. So, how far up your HR priority list are these learning opportunities? And will they still be as engaging and meaningful if your workforce is operating on a hybrid model? Challenges One of the main challenges you may find yourself facing is actually creating a training schedule that works. In this “new normal” of hybrid and flexible working, classroom sessions in the office could prove difficult to organise. But what you don’t want to do is to substitute these with an enormous amount of Zoom or Teams sessions that end up feeling like a chore, as opposed to a learning opportunity. Sure, they are convenient, but are they going to have the long lasting impact you want? Solutions If a video call is the only way you can organise these sessions, rotating in different speakers and different styles of presentation is one way to keep things interesting. “Gameify” the session with polls and break out rooms to keep it interactive. You could perhaps even set tasks in advance so that your employees come prepared to talk and share. Another thing to consider is informal one to one sessions with your colleagues in a non-office environment. Employees may feel more able to open up about their plans and targets over a coffee. Communication We live in an era where you can communicate with anyone you choose to within seconds. But are you doing it well? Are you communicating their progress in a particular set of learning modules? Are you checking in with them to see how they are coping with the additional learning? Have you really understood their career goals? These are all critical questions to consider when booking in regular time. Feedback At your communication “check points”, ensure you are giving thorough feedback. What is the point in sending someone on a course or to a video call session if you’re not going to give them honest feedback about their performance or participation? Conversely, ask your learners to give you feedback as to how relevant and engaging their learning modules or guest speakers are. This gives you the chance to either maintain things as they are or adapt and take a different approach, should it be necessary. Making Time As noted at the beginning of this blog, learning opportunities may not be as far up your priority list as they should be. That’s understandable – when you’re extremely busy doing to the “day to day”, it can be hard to find time to embark on another time consuming project. But it is crucial that you do make the time if you want to have happy, skilled and productive employees who want to stay in your business. If you would like to speak to me about hiring high quality HR talent for your business, or you are a HR professional looking to discuss a career move, please click here to get in touch.