Four Ways to Improve Employee Skill Development and Mobility (Strategy Brief)

Both the workforce and workplace have changed drastically in the last few years. Organizations must explore new and sometimes untested ways to allow their employees to advance even in this new environment. Although the fundamental concepts of discovering and assessing skills across the enterprise are still at the core of creating a more capable and mobile workforce, new ways of accelerating skill and competency development are now being used.

Four Critical Employee Onboarding Practices in a Rapidly Changing Workplace

Onboarding is an effective way to get your teams working together. You can promote interactions across divisions and functional areas by creating onboarding activities that require teamwork. For example, you can have new employees work on cross-functional teams on a collaborative project. For employees in new roles or at a newly merged company, you might choose to create a social onboarding task. These types of interactions help employees feel connected to something bigger than themselves. These types of activities also help the employee get familiar with the tools and technology available to them in their new role. It also helps them to see how that technology might be useful in solving problems down the road.      

Gaining Organization-Wide Agreement on Leadership Values

reasons behind it so they can be mindful of it in their day-to-day interactions. Once consensus is reached and a model is forged or amended, it just can’t sit there as a document. Employers need to have very specific strategies not only to inform employees that there is a model, but to communicate — and demonstrate — how everyone must participate in building a strong leadership culture across the enterprise. 

Collaborative and Cohort-Based Leadership Development is Critical for Success

Leadership is the ultimate context-driven capability, requiring a blend of cognitive, empathetic and practical behaviors and competencies. Collaborative learning fosters a dynamic learning culture that engages learners, promotes accountability, and makes learning across the organization more scalable, applicable and dynamic.