If you want to remove the parking brake that is holding your organization back from reaching its best growth and potential, your job as a leader is to develop your employees with skills, and remove obstacles that get in the way of them serving their colleagues and customers.
There have been millions upon millions of dollars spent around the globe on employee engagement and improving customer service. In my experience the missing ingredient to unlocking your employees’ discretionary energy and providing your customers with better service is enabling your employees with the skills needed to excel today and the development needed to advance tomorrow.
When you deliver skills that increase the competency of your workers, they will become more engaged and energized and will be more knowledgeable and able to provide better service for your customers.
As a leader, you want to hire people who are smarter than you and who have a passion for growth and learning. If you think about it, your employees should know more about their areas of specialization than anybody else, and their decisions are likely to have an impact throughout the company. That is why it is crucial to invest in their skills and competencies, so they can make smart decisions on behalf of your company and provide their colleagues and customers with amazing service.
Here are 6 ways to skill up your workers for service:
- Provide engaging learning to develop skills that make your employees more marketable, ideally internally, but maybe someday externally.
- Remove obstacles and bad or outdated policies that can negatively affect employee enablement. Learn more about how to become a Chief Obstacle Remover in this video.
- Leverage your employees’ distinct abilities and ensure the right people are in the right roles.
- Focus on giving your employees non-monetary rewards such as career growth and recognition programs. This will incentivize and motivate them to practice and use their skills with their colleagues and customers.
- Provide life skills that will differentiate your employees in any role they are in. Life skills, often referred to as ‘soft-skills’ are what differentiate humans from robots. These are the skills that help create personalized, authentic interactions with colleagues and customers.
- Layer in skills over time, with a focus on follow up, reinforcement and action planning. If you repeat and reinforce your learning, they will be able to access their skills when they need them.
Now that you know why it’s important to skill up for service, read more about the Top 4 Things Your Employees Want From Their Learning Program.